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'LIBRARY of congress. S 



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If UNITED STATES OP AMERICA.! 



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AN 

APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC, 

ON THE 

HAZARD AND PERIL 

OF 

VACCINATION, 

OTHERWISE 

Coto $0?, 

BY THE LATE 

JOHN BIRCH, ESQ. 

TOGETHER WITH HIS 

SERIOUS REASONS 

FOR UNIFORMLY OBJECTING TO VACCINATION; 
AND OTHER TRACTS 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

y — 

THE THIRD EDITION. 






LONDON : 

.SOLD BY J. HARRIS, CORNER OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCH- 
YARD; MR. CALLOW, CROWN-COURT, SOHO : MR. 
HIGHLEY, FLEET-STREET; MR. COX, BOROUGH; MR. 
HATCHARD, PICCADILLY ; AND BY EVERY BOOKSELLER 
IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 

1817. 






& 



Ji, Bfjfef, Prink r, Bridge-street, Blackfriars, London. 



AD VER T IS EM EN T. 



IN consequence of the earnest solici- 
tations of many respectable Friends of 
my much-lamented brother and myself, 
and who too well know the truth of that 
clear and convincing stile of argument, 
pursued in his " Serious Reasons for uni- 
" formly objecting to the practice of Vac- 
° cination," and other Tracts of his, I 
have been induced to offer to the Public a 
Third Edition, sincerely hoping that they 
may carry conviction to the minds of those 
who have been hitherto unhappily under 
the influence of popular prejudices, and that 
the baneful consequences of the Cow Pox 
may be no longer engrafted on the human 
system : and of this I am the more inclined 
to be persuaded, since the heat of dispu- 
tation has in a considerable degree sub- 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

sided, and the Public in general have 
long seen through the misrepresentations 
which have obscured the truth, and which 
they have, alas ! felt too keenly, from 
their own experience of the Cow Pox 
experiment. Hoping, therefore, the well- 
known character of my late brother will 
overbalance the misrepresentations of de- 
signing persons, 

I remain his affectionate 

and grateful Sister, 

Penelope Birch. 

Sept? 181 7. 



A COPY 

OF THE 

ANSWER TO THE QUERIES 

OF THE 

Hott&ott College of gorgeous; 

AND OF 

A LETTER 

TO THE 

COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, 

RESPECTING THE EXPERIMENT OF 

COW POX. 



BY JOHN BIRCH, 

SURGEON EXTRAORDINARY TO THE PRINCE OF WALES, 
AND SURGEON TO ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL. 



TO WHICH IS ADDED, 

THE SECOND EDITION 

OF 

SERIOUS REASONS 

FOR UNIFORMLY OBJECTING TO THE 

PRACTICE OF VACCINATION, &c. 



Naturam expeUasjurca, tamen usque recurret. 



PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1807. 






H. Buyer, Fnnt.er, Rrideweil Hospital, London, 



PREFACE. 



SOME time has now elapsed since the 
College of Physicians was directed to 
report on the experiment of Vaccination, 
and to ascertain why a practice, which 
had received the sanction of Parliament, 
instead of encreasing, seemed evidently to 
decline. 

The method the College took was the 
most unexceptionable that could be 
devised. The London College of Sur- 
geons was applied to, and a number of 
queries by their means, was sent to the 
most respectable practitioners, not only in 
the metropolis but in every part of this 

Kingdom. 

B2 



IV 



On the returns to these, and other 
Queries, the answer of the College of 
Physicians has been formed : but those 
returns have been so imperfect, that it is 
of importance, the Public should be 
informed of the real state of the question. 

The College of Physicians indeed, 
though they cannot deny a partial failure 
of the Experiment, still think themselves 
justified in recommending it: but it is 
difficult on any grounds of just reasoning 
to acquiesce in their decision. 

In the answers returned to the Queries 
issued by the London College of Surgeons, 
they have been informed of Fifty-six cases 
of failure, of Sixty six of consequent erup- 
tion, of Twenty-four of bad arms, and of 
Three of death : now these facts alone 
disprove the assertions made before the 



V 

House of Commons, on which the vote in? 
favour of Vaccination was passed ; and 
would have been sufficient to have over- 
thrown the practice of Inoculation, when 
that experiment was first introduced. 

The Public however ought to be in- 
formed that of more than eleven hundred 
persons, to whom Queries were addressed 
by the College of Surgeons, only four 
hundred and twentv-six returned answers. 
Why nearly two thirds of those Gentle- 
men were silent, when so many of them 
had been, in an earl y stage of the experi- 
ment, the warmest advocates for it, I do 
not mean to enquire ; but I must argue 
that the College of Physicians, were not 
authorized to draw any conclusions in 
favour of Vaccination from the facts before 
them. If so many cases of Failure, 
Eruption, and Death, have been admitted 



VI 



from so small a return to the Queries 
issued, what might have been the number, 
had all the answers been received ? why 
were not these answers sent ? why was 
not the cause of silence ascertained ? or 
how could so general a conclusion be war- 
ranted from such imperfect premises ? 

These are circumstances of importance 
toward enabling the Public at large to 
form their opinion on the merits of the 
Experiment. I have therefore thought it 
a duty to publish my answer to the 
Questions of the College of Surgeons, and 
my letter to the College of Physicians. 
In the last of these I have adduced no 
less than seven cases of death caused by 
Vaccination, and occurring not among the 
inferior orders of Society. 

I could add more but for the reasons 



Vll 

assigned in the letter itself, to which I 
refer the reader. 

The cases adduced however are enough 
to confute the assertions made to the 
House of Commons, that Vaccination 
might be safely adopted because it was 
never fatal. 

I have been induced to republish " The 
Serious reasons for objecting to the prac- 
tice of Vaccination/ ' because the sale of 
that Pamphlet convinces me the Public 
are satisfied that the arguments it con- 
tains are just : and that it has produced 
some effect, notwithstanding the gross 
misrepresentations in the Edinburgh Re- 
view of January, on the subject of Vac- 
cination. 

Did my professional avocations give rae 



Vlll 



time, and did I not think it an hopeless* 
undertaking to answer those, who only 
write for pay, and care not whom, or 
what they attack, so long as they may 
make their book sell, I could easily ex- 
pose the false reasoning, and still falser 
assertions advanced in the Article alluded 
to. As it is, I shall pass it by in silence, 
satisfied that those opinions alone will 
ultimately prevail which are supported 
with truth. 



QUERIES, $c. 



Question I. 
HO W many persons have you vaccinated £ 

Answer. 

I have attended several who have been vac- 
cinated, but never vaccinated any myself. 

Question II. 

Have any of your patients had the small 
pox ? — In the case of every such occurrence, 
at what period was the vaccine matter taken 
from the vesicle? How was it preserved ? How 
long before it was inserted P What was the ap- 
pear mice of the inflammation and the variolous 
eruption P 

Answer. 

I have seen some patients labouring under 
the natural small pox by inoculation after vac- 
cination ; I have also seen patients vaccinated 
in a variolous atmosphere, with an intention 
to prevent the small pox, but it did not suc- 
ceed. 



10 

How the vaccine matter was obtained, or 
how preserved, I cannot take upon me to say ; 
but I conclude the rules prescribed by the 
Jennerian Society were strictly attended to, 
as the Operators in ail these cases were expe- 
rienced and approved Vaccinators ; and the 
appearances on the vaccinated arms were such 
as according* to the rules then established, au- 
thorized them to declare that due vaccination 
had taken place; such as would perfectly se- 
cure the patient from all danger of small pox. 

If however after all, so nice a discrimination 
is required in taking the matter, and if the 
wounding of the cutis by the lancet is so dan- 
gerous, these circumstances of themselves form 
an insuperable objection to the practice ; since 
the Vaccinator must frequently rely on the ac- 
curacy of another person for the genuineness of 
the lymph, and consequently the safety of the 
operation; whereas from smallpox taken in 
any stage of the disorder, and from any patient 
whatever, nothing but small pox can be com- 
municated ; and the wound of the cutis 9 though 
unnecessary, is never productive of fatal effects. 

Besides the many cases of failure in vacci- 
nation that have fallen under my own know- 
ledge, I have authentic proofs of similar 



11 



instances in various parts of the country : and 
I learn from the Reports both of the Royal 
Jennerian, and of the Original Vaccine Insti- 
tutions, that after the most perfect vaccination 
some of their experiments have failed ; so that 
their reports confirm my own observations and 
the observations of others. 

Question III. 

Have any bad effects occurred in your ex- 
perience in consequence of vaccination ? and 
if so, what were they P 

Answer* 

I have known several bad effects occur in 
consequence of vaccination. The case of 
*Rebecca Latchford is published : she is not 
yet well ; spring" and fall she is usually visited 
with some eruption or suppuration about the 
face or arm. 

I have also seen more than two cases similar 
to that of Jowles, in which the face has been 
principally attacked. By some Vaccinators 
these eruptions were called Scrophula : but 
how can this be reconciled with the positive 

* She lost the sight of one Eye this year. 



12 

assurance of a justly celebrated Surgeon, or> 
which Parliament implicitly relied, " that nei- 
" ther scrophula, nor any other disease was 
" excited by vaccination?'* Besides the sin- 
gular eruptions above mentioned, I have seen 
many others of a very itching nature, and 
some shrivelled, scaly skins, consequent on 
cow pox, for the cure of which, in the erup- 
tive stage, mercurial remedies have been re- 
sorted to. 

Capt. Butts, of the Navy, lost an infant 
from an eruption which took place imme- 
diately from the affection of the arm. 

The cases of Mr. Watts's children are well 
known, and were promised by Dr. Wiilan to 
be published ; why they have been withheld 
is a question I conceive highly worthy the 
consideration of the Committee. 

I have information from Hertford of five 
cases, where natural small pox has occurred 
after vaccination, in four of which the patients 
died. 

In Lambeth Workhouse also several died 
of small pox subsequent to vaccination ; so 
that the assertion that vaccination renders the 
natural small pox more mild, seems to be al- 
together void of foundation. 



13 

•*' It is our duty," says the Original Vaccine 
Institution, " to acknowledge that four or five 
** cnses have proved fatal, from the affection 
■" of the part vaccinated." 

Question IV. 

Is the practice of vaccination increasing, 
or decreasing in your neighbourhood? If de- 
creasing, to what cause do you impute it ? 

Answer. 

The practice of vaccination is certainly de- 
creasing in London, as far as my observation 
goes ; and is falling into disrepute. 

In answering the latter part of this query, 
which calls on me to assign the causes of this 
decrease in the practice of vaccination, I hope 
I may be allowed to enter more fully into the 
business than at first sight I might appear 
warranted from the query itself. 

One of the principal causes of the decline of 
Vaccination I conceive to be, the disagreement 
of the two Societies instituted for its support, 
upon many essential points : for their state- 
ments are so discordant, so opposite, that I 
do not see how any dispassionate person can 



14 

make up his mind as to the opinion he ought 
to form, or the guide he ought to follow. 

A second cause is, that Dr. Jenner's account 
of the disorder originating from the greasy 
heel of the horse, is not satisfactory ; and if it 
were so in point of fact, it would require much 
persuasion before considerate parents would 
be induced to communicate to their children 
a disorder originating in a poison of such a 
foul and noxious quality, that in the horse 
itself is always difficult to manage, and often 
incurable. 

A third cause is the acknowledged uncer- 
tainty of the experiment ; for it is now ad- 
mitted by one of the Institutions, and also by 
a Correspondent of Dr. Willan's, that vacci- 
nation must be performed twice to insure suc- 
cess. Does not this test imply, that it is 
difficult to ascertain when vaccination may be 
depended on ? 

The different opinions maintained by the 
two Societies which have been formed in this 
metropolis to prosecute the experiment of 
vaccination, are well known from their Re- 
ports ; but I must beg leave to remind your 
Committee, that those Institutions were ori- 
ginally one, which circumstance is of great 



15 



importance in the present question. Men 
embarked in the same cause do not separate 
on slight or trivial grounds of difference. 
Had the experiment answered with any to- 
lerable degree of accuracy the promises made 
to Parliament; had there been no failures; 
no consequent eruptions ; no deaths ; the So- 
ciety could not have been split into two; that 
they are thus divided, is a proof that the ex- 
periment is doubtful both in its principles and 
application. 

This is evident from the discordant opinions 
the two Societies maintain; a discordance not 
in points of inferior consideration, but of fun- 
damental import. Thus the Royal Jennerian 
Institution insists on two sorts of Cow Pox, a 
a genuine and a spurious; while the Original 
Institution maintain there is only one sort, 
and that a patient must be twice vaccinated as 
a test of security. 

The subsequent conduct of the Eoyal Jen- 
nerian Society, wan by no means calculated to 
do away the unfavourable impressions this dis- 
agreement excited : it served rather to inspire 
distrust into the minds of the friends of vacci- 
nation, as well as into the Public at large; for 
that society again divided, and opposed its 



16 

rival Institution, by ^handbills delivered in 
the street, after the manner of Empirics, and 
with an acrimony incompatible with the con- 
sciousness of a good cause. Surely, if the 
practice of vaccination be not a fallacy, its 
success will recommend it. The family of 
the Suttons subdued all opposition to inocu- 
lation by success. How then shall we account 
for that contemptible and disingenuous pro- 
duction, which would have disgraced the pu- 
ritanical Zealots of a former age, printed and 
published at 6s. 6d. per dozen : and sent forth 
to our Colonies, placed in our Sunday Schools, 
and exhibited at the several stations of the 



* A CAUTION. 
To persons desirous of obtaining Inoculation for the 
Cow Pox Gratis, under the sanction of the 
ROYAL JENNERIAN SOCIETY. 
Whereas Doctor John Walker has, under various pre- 
tences, obstructed persons going to the central house of 
this Society; the Public are hereby warned to be upon 
their guard against any insidious representations, the 
connection between Dr. Walker and the Society having 
ceased, and Dr. Knowles having been appointed the 
Resident Inoculator at the Society's house, N° 14-, Salis- 
bury Square. 

By Order of the Directors and Medical Council 9 
9th October, 1806. 



17 

Jennerian Society ? I again repeat, if the 
Cow Pox were not a fallacy, it could not, it 
would not have had recourse to such mean 
expedients as the print I now send for the in- 
spection of the Committee. 

If the respectable Members of the College 
of Physicians, who in the first instance sub- 
scribed their names to the support of an Insti- 
tution which stoops to such degrading methods, 
had been apprized of these proceedings, I 
firmly believe they would have been earlier 
led to a more minute investigation of the 
subject, and have doubted the propriety of 
upholding by their credit an experiment, that 
stood in need of such arts, as a liberal profes- 
sion has uniformly rejected, and Empiricism 
only has ventured to resort to. 

What will be the opinion of Parliament 
when these flagrant improprieties are laid be- 
fore them is easy to imagine.* 

The last reason which I shall assign is, that 
among those who have vaccinated their chil- 
dren, even though they say they have confi- 



* The comparative view of the effects of Small Pox, &c. 
was sent to the College with this paper, and is now in the 
hands of one of the Secretaries of State. 

C 



18. 

dence in the experiment, I have found very 
few whose confidence is real ; a restless, anx- 
ious doubt is left behind, a doubt which under 
the present existing circumstances, no medical 
man who has made it his business to enquire 
into the practice of Cow Pox and its results, 
can fairly remove. 

According- to my view of the subject, in 
respect to the consequences of vaccination, I 
am compelled to declare, that I see new and 
anomalous eruptions following' this disease; 
eruptions which in the- whole course of my 
former practice I never met with, and which 
I must conscientiously refer to this novel 
practice, and to this alone. 

In my opinion, therefore, the admissions of 
the Institutions, established under the inspec- 
tion and protection of so many eminent medi- 
cal characters, for the express purpose of ex- 
terminating the Small Pox by Vaccination ; 
go, not only toward refuting' the earlier testi- 
monies given by those Gentlemen to the Com- 
mittee of the House of Commons, but form 
a sufficient answer to the fourth query of this 
College — Why the practice declines in this 
metropolis^ where it has been introduced, and 



19 



prosecuted with every possible attention, 

BECAUSE THE EXPERIENCE OF SEVEN 
YEARS, HAS PROVED IT TO BE A FALLA- 
CIOUS EXPERIMENT, INCAPABLE OF RE- 
ALIZING THOSE SEVERAL ADVANTAGES 
WHICH IT PROMISED TO PARLIAMENT, 
AND WAS EXPECTED TO HAVE ACCOM- 
PLISHED. 



(Signed) 

John Birch, 



Spring Gardens, 
28th January, 1807 



C 2 



A LETTER 

TO THE COMMITTEE 

APPOINTED BY 

THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, 

TO REPORT THEIR INVESTIGATIONS 

CONCERNING 

COW POX. 



Gentlemen, 

On the Report of the Committee ap- 
pointed to examine into Dr.' Jenner's Dis- 
covery, Parliament gave a liberal reward, 
because the Report asserted 

" Vaccination effectually secured the 

Patient from Small Pox." 
" That it never was followed by Erup- 
tions ;" 
" And it had never been known to be 
fatal/ 1 
In the same Sessions a reward of £.6000 
was adjudged to a Physician for another Dis- 
covery to fumigate Ships ; but the Admiralty 
having lost three vessels by the experiment, 
it was thought proper to desist from further 
trial of it. Perhaps this circumstance may 



22 

have given rise to the present enquiry, re- 
specting- the efficacy of Cow Pox. 

Parliament now demand the reason, why, 
after having been persuaded to give a reward 
for the discovery, the practice seems to de- 
cline ? An answer to this plain question is all 
that is required. 

If the Small Pox has been known in seve- 
ral instances to have attacked persons pre- 
viously vaccinated — If Eruptions and Glan- 
dular Complaints have followed Vaccination, 
so as to have been excited by Vaccination — 
If death has succeeded so immediately to 
Cow Pox Inoculation, as to be owing indis- 
putably to it ; then w r e must conclude, that 
the beneficial effects which the Faculty and 
the Public were induced to expect from the 
report of the Jenneriah Committee, have not 
been accomplished; and the total failure of 
their promises, is the reason why an anxious, 
restless doubt remains on the minds of pa- 
rents, as to the propriety of Vaccination : a 
doubt, which under' the present existing cir- 
cumstances, no medical man, who has made 
it his business to enquire into the Practice 
of Cow Pox and its results, can fairly re- 
move. 



23 

If any other reason need be assigned for 
the dislike which the lower class of people 
have taken to the practice of Vaccination 
than their conviction of its inefficacy ; the 
Deception which has been so frequently and 
injudiciously practised upon them by vacci- 
nating" their children, when they relied upon 
the honour of the operator, that they should 
be inoculated with Small Pox, might be ad- 
duced. This Deception, and the too frequent 
Eruptions and Glandular Tumours which fol- 
lowed, have tended to create a spreading 
distrust, as well of the honour of the Faculty, 
as of the soundness of the practice ; and the 
College of Physicians, who are esteemed 
from their education and rank in life, the 
guardians of that honour, will doubtless be 
attentive to this circumstance. 

A sufficient number of Failures, of Erup- 
tions, and of Deaths, is evident from the re- 
turns made to the College of Surgeons, al- 
though in my opinion, the method adopted 
by that College, was by no means the best 
for ascertaining the truth. 

Fifty six Failures, Sixty -six Eruptions, 
Twenty-four Bad Arms, and Three Deaths, 
are admitted, and these are sufficient to con- 



21 

tradict the report of the Jennerian Com- 
mittee. A similar number would have been 
sufficient to have overturned the high reputa- 
tion of Mr. Sutton, and Baron Dimsdale, 
each of whom singly inoculated almost as 
many patients as the whole amount of the 
vaccinated in the returns of the College of 
Surgeons. 

Perhaps I need not inform the Committee, 
that very lately the Small Pox appeared in 
several parts of Devonshire and Somerset- 
shire, where Vaccination had been practised, 
and the people insisted on Inoculation, with 
which some of the Faculty were obliged to 
comply, seeing the infection spread so fast. 
That Mr. Goss, of Dawlish, had resorted to 
a general inoculation, and had submitted his 
own children, whom he had formerly vacci- 
nated, to the test, two of whom received the 
Small Pox, and one resisted it. That Sir 
George Dallas's children, two of whom had 
been vaccinated by Mr. Knight, of London, 
and one by Mr. Goss, received the infection 
in the most decided way ; and although Dr. 
Borland and Mr. Ferguson were sent over to 
explain, yet Inoculation from these children 
put the matter beyond a doubt, which other- 



26 

wise probably would have been objected to, 
although Small Pox was decidedly charac- 
terised by the judgment of Mr. Goss, Mr. 
Sheldon, and others. 

Two children at Teignmouth, caught the 
Small Pox after having been formerly Vacci- 
nated. 

Similar circumstances have occurred at 
Wywelscomb, and in its neighbourhood. 

What happened in the Gloucestershire 
Militia, and the Parish of Beckshill, in 
Sussex, where several took Small Pox after 
Vaccination. 

What has happened in the Hertfordshire 
Regiment, in the Barracks at Hyde Park ; in 
the parish of Walthamstow ; and in Mr. 
Goslin's family, have probably been reported 
to the Committee. 

If the Committee should have reason to 
complain that their wishes have not been 
sufficiently attended to, much necessary in- 
telligence must have been kept back. 

Certainly it is not in the English law, to 
make a man accuse himself; and those must 
have done so, who have been unsuccessful, if 
they had answered the queries of our Col- 
lege: therefore it is worthy of remark, that 



26 

to eleven hundred letters^ only four hundred 
mid twenty-six answers were received, and 
the confessions made in these answers must 
be esteemed voluntary confessions. What 
would have been the calculation, if the six 
hundred and seventy-four who have not re- 
plied, had answered with candour, remains 
for the consideration of the Committee ; 
and if the failures and accidents of the 
Apothecaries, Men Midwives, Clergy, and 
the Ladies, were added to the numeration, I 
am very well assured it would be striking. 

Three deaths were only brought forward ; 
but it will not be difficult to prove that 
two children of Mr. Watts, in St. Mary Axe ; 
one child at Islington ; the child of Mr. 
Haslam, Bethlem Hospital ; one of Captain 
Butts, R. N. besides Dr. Smith Stewart's, 
and Captain J. H. Linzee's, have fallen vic- 
tims to the puncture of lancets armed with 
Vaccine Virus. 

I miffht add to this fatal list some in- 
stances which have occurred in the most 
respectable families, but the reluctance they 
feel to have their names made public, as I 
am not at liberty to use them, compels me to 
silence. 



27 



■Although the College of Surgeons have 
rejected alt cases brought forward of per sops 
Vaccinated by one practitioner, feni reported 
to have had Small Pox by another, which 
obviously sets aside a large portion of evi- 
dence, that would otherwise have been ad- 
duced ;* the House of Commons cannot in 
justice reject them, since their reward was 
given on a majority of hearsay evidence. 

The cases Vaccinated by Mr. Knight, 
and [noculated by Mr. Goss, cannot there- 
fore be rejected on this plea. It is affirmed 
that Mr. Knight declared if these cases 
failed, he would give up Vaccination, and 
they have been proved by the test of ino- 
culating from them, as recommended by 
the Committee of the supposed Small Pox 
cases in Holborn ; therefore it remains with 
Mr. Knight to disprove them, or give up 
Cow Pox. 

The proposal I made to the Court of As- 
sistants of the College of Surgery, to investi- 



* In an answer to Q. 3d. of the College of Surgeons, 
one eminent Practitioner replied, " I presume this 
Quere does not go to an enquiry of what mischief I have 
seen in the practice of others." 



28 

gate this important matter in an Open Com- 
mittee, having been overruled, I think my- 
self at liberty to offer these sentiments to the 
College of Physicians, from whom the public 
look for an impartial decision on this mo- 
mentous subject. 

Signed, John Birch. 



SERIOUS REASONS 



FOR 



UNIFORMLY OBJECTING 



TO THE 



PRACTICE OF VACCINATION, %c. 



TO THE 

HON. BARON DIMSDALE, 

AS BEST QUALIFIED TO DECIDE 

ON THE MERIT OF THE EXPERIMENT 

AND THE 

TRUTH OF THE ARGUMENT; 

THESE REASONS 

ARE, 

WITH DUE RESPECT, 

INSCRIBED 

BY 

HIS FAITHFUL FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR. 

Spring Gardens, 
June, 1806. 



SERIOUS REASONS 

FOR 

UNIFORMLY OPPOSING 

THE 

PRACTICE of VACCINATION, &c. 



THAT the enthusiasm with which Vacci- 
nation was at first adopted should subside, 
and that the Public should express regret 
that what ought to have been admitted as an 
experiment only, had been adopted as prac- 
tice, are circumstances which it was easy to 
foresee, would sooner or later occur. In ail 
investigations, and in all enquiries, Truth 
must ultimately prevail. In the present it 
would have long since prevailed, had not the 
patrons of Vaccination had recourse to such 
expedients to interest the passions, and mis- 
lead the judgment of the Public, as could 
hardly fail of obtaining for their system, a 
temporary kind of success. But the triumph 
of prejudice and novelty will always be 
transient. The empire of Truth alone is 

i> 



34 

permanent. I entertain no doubt therefore 
but that we shall soon see what yet remains 
of popular opinion favourable to the cause of 
Vaccination, vanish into thin air ; and that 
the speculatists in physic, like the speculatists 
in polities, will be brought back to the old 
standard of sober reason and experience. 

Impressed with this conviction 1 should 
have patiently awaited the event, and con- 
tenting myself with having declared my 
opinion publicly, should have forborne taking 
any part in the controversy, had it not been 
for considerations of humanity, which super- 
cede every other. 

Whereever I go I find the minds of parents 
distracted with doubt, and labouring under 
gloomy apprehensions. They tell me that 
the fluctuations of medical opinion concerning 
the origin, and nature of the Vaccine disease 
fills them with alarm ; and they say they are 
in the most fearful state of suspense, dreading 
lest what they were persuaded to do in the 
hopes of saving their children from one 
disease, may not prove the means of plunging 
them into another, at once novel and ma- 
lignant. 

Much as I lament their being in so dis- 



35 



tressing* a state of suspense, I cannot wonder 
at it. For while on the one hand they hear 
of repeated instances of the failure of Vacci- 
nation 3 on the other they find, that reports 
from the Jennerian Committee, subscribed 
by names, some of the highest respectability, 
are widely circulated, full of seeming argu- 
ments and assertions in favour of the expe- 
riment ; assertions which they have not the 
means of contradicting ; and arguments just 
plausible enough to excite doubt, but not 
sufficiently strong to operate conviction. If 
under these circumstances I can adduce what 
may enable persons of this description to 
form a fixed opinion on the merits of Vacci- 
nation, and thus rescue them from the misery 
of uncertainty, I shall consider myself as 
having discharged one of the most important 
duties I owe Society. 

Such is the primary motive for my writing" 
the following pages : a secondary motive is, 
that as the Jennerian Committee have sent 
me their Report of last January for my sigv. 
nature, I may candidly tell them why I have 
hitherto forborne to subscribe it, and why I 
shall never subscribe it. To this report, 
therefore, and to a very ingenious pamphlet 
D 2 



m 

written by Mr. James Moore, certainly the 
ablest and most candid writer that has ap- 
peared in support of Vaccination, I shall 
confine as much as possible my remarks. 
The bitterness of invective, and the unhand- 
some sneers, with which the partisans of 
Vaccination have assailed their opponents, as 
they offer no argument, merit no reply. 

The Report opens by stating, that the 
Medical Council appointed twenty-five mem- 
bers of the Jennerian Society as a Com- 
mittee to enquire into the truth of various 
cases that had occurred, exciting prejudices 
against Vaccine Inoculation ; and it is the 
result of their enquiries, that is submitted to 
the Public. 

Now, without calling in question the 
judgment of the Medical Council, I must 
observe that it became them, in a matter of 
such importance, to inform us who these 
twenty-five persons were. For as the Society 
is very numerous, comprehending many of 
both sexes, and of all professions, the Com- 
mittee might have been formed of persons, 
not altogether competent to the task; since 
evidently, besides what may be called a 
knowledge of Vaccination, it was neces- 



37 

sary there should be likewise a thorough 
knowledge of medicine. In other words 
the Public ought to have been assured that 
the Committee was composed of regular and 
experienced physicians and surgeons, before 
they could be in reason expected to assent 
to its decisions : instead of which we have a 
Committee made up of persons whose very 
names we are unacquainted with. I confess 
this circumstance, in my mind, throws as 
much suspicion over the Jennerian Reports, 
as it would over a verdict in a common 
court of law to be told, that it was the 
verdict of a jury, no one member of which 
the defendant was permitted to challenge; 
whose names, conditions and character were 
studiously concealed : and who had never 
so much as appeared in court during the trial. 
This however is not the only circumstance 
that makes me regard with an eye of sus- 
picion the Reports of the Committee. The 
several articles of that Report are couched 
either in a style so dogmatizing, that the 
Committee seem more intent on imposing a 
law, than on producing conviction ; or else 
in terms so vague and ambiguous, that the 
reader must be at a loss to obtain any fixed 



38 

and definitive idea of the subject. The 
former of these faults I will pass over, as it 
may be attributed to the force of the con- 
viction entertained by the Committee of the 
justness of their positions : but the latter as 
an honest man I cannot, since it has a ten- 
dency to mislead, rather than direct the 
judgment of the Public. Surely the Com- 
mittee are aware that nothing* is more sus- 
picious than the use of equivocal expressions ; 
and that there is nothing the candid disputant 
more scrupulously avoids. By means of these, 
confessions of error, extorted by truth, may 
be made no confessions at all : may be so 
worded as to produce no effect, and yet carry 
with them the appearance of candour, and 
concession. I will instance the truth of this 
remark in the Ninth and Tenth article of the 
Jennerian Tteport. 

The Committee being at last compelled to 
acknowledge that cases have been brought 
before them, in which it was incontestibly 
proved that persons having passed through 
the Cow Pox in a regular way, had after- 
wards received the Small Pox; contrive to 
destroy the effect of the concession, by the 
following ambiguous expressions. 



39 

<c It is admitted that a few cases have 
u been brought before them, of persons who 
" had apparently passed through the Cow 
" Pox in a regular way, &c." 

Now, (not to remark on the use of the 
indefinite word yew, which may mean five or 
six, or five or six dozen, for ought we know, 
when it was so obviously important, and easy 
to have specified the precise number,) I must 
observe, that as the passage stands worded, 
it might seem as if the Committee, having 
seen all the cases of failure in Vaccination 
that could be produced, found only a few 
they could admit to be genuine. How many 
cases they did see, I will not take upon me 
to conjecture : I suspect they did not wish 
to see many, for if they had, they might 
have seen, or have had unquestionable testi- 
mony of many hundred cases of failure, of 
which not a few, but far the greater part, if 
not the whole, would have been found con- 
clusive against them. 

But it is said, " apparently passed through 
" the Cow Pox/' What ! only apparently ? 
If the Committee had not been satisfied the 
patients had really passed through the Cow 
Pox, they neither would, or ought to have 



40 

admitted the failure of what they call a fem 
cases. Why then is the word " apparently' 5 
introduced? I can imagine no other cause, 
than that this equivocal word might serve to 
qualify the confession of the Committee, and 
thus make it appear less conclusive than it 
really is. 

But this is not all. The Committee pro- 
ceed to say, that " cases supported by evi- 
u deuce equally strong- were brought before 
Ci them of persons having had the Small Pox 
i' a second time by natural infection." 

Will the Committee pardon me if I re- 
mark that they are here guilty of reasoning 
very unfairly, to say no worse of it. In the 
one instance they argue from cases brought 
before them : in the other, from the evidence 
of cases brought before them. That is, when 
a case makes against them they admit no 
proof but the evidence of their own senses : 
when it is favourable to their cause, they 
admit it on the evidence of others. In fair 
reasoning, in both instances, a similar degree 
of proof ought to be required. If cases on 
the testimony of others are admitted to prove 
the failure of inoculation, cases on the testi- 
mony of others, should be admitted to prove 



41 

the failure of Vaccination ; and then the 
Committee will be compelled to state that 
not merely a few cases, but that many hun- 
dred cases of failure have occurred : for many 
hundred cases are already before the Public 
of persons who have had the Small Pox after 
Vaccination, attested by the evidence, not of 
hasty observers and unscientific Operators, 
but of able and experienced Practitioners. 

But this is not the only instance of unfair 
reasoning [ am to complain of on the part of 
the Jennerian Committee. 

They say, " In many of the cases in which 
" Small Pox has occurred after Inoculation !" 
Many of the cases ! This expression I presume 
is to contrast with the few cases of failure 
admitted in Vaccination, and the Reader is 
left to infer that cases of failure in Inoculation 
are of frequent recurrence j than which infer- 
ence nothing can be more unfounded, more 
contrary to truth. 

For in the first place, if we could grant all 
the cases that have been adduced on any thing 
like proof, to attest the recurrence of Small 
Pox after Inoculation, these, during a perio4 
of more than half a century, would not amount 
to more than three. 



42 

But in the second place, the fact itself has 
been uniformly denied by the best and most 
able Practitioners. They have always main- 
tained that the Small Pox never has been 
known to recur after Inoculation ; and how- 
ever the contrary may be assumed by those 
who have svstems of their own to advance, it 
is considered as one of the invariable Laws of 
Nature, that, (and if an exception could be 
proved, I should be justified in saying, excep- 
tio probat regulam) a Patient can suffer the 
Small Pox but once. 

I might quote in support of my opinion, that 
of the celebrated Baron Dirnsdale, Dr. Archer, 
and many others; but it will be of greater au- 
thority in the present case to quote the opinion 
of Mr. J. Moore, the candid supporter of 
Vaccination, who admits in his Pamphlet, that 
Small Pox does not recur after Inoculation. 

I have dwelt longer on these two Articles, 
than I probably shall on any of the succeeding, 
that I might put the Reader on his guard 
against the false conclusions into which he 
might otherwise be led, by the ambiguous 
manner in which the Committee write. And 
I shall dismiss this part of the subject by say- 
ing, that the same inaccuracy of expression, 



43 

(whether accidental or studied, I presume not 
to decide) that reigns in this particular in- 
stance, reigns throughout the whole of the Re- 
port. So that the inference, drawn of old from 
the artful conduct of a single individual to the 
craftiness of a whole race, may be applied to 
the arguments of the Committee, 

Crimine ab uno, 
Disce omnes ■ 



Let us now follow the Committee to other 
particulars. — 

They proceed to assert, that most of the 
cases they examined were mistated or un- 
founded. 

If they allude to the cases mentioned 
by Mr. Rogers in his Pamphlet entitled, 
" Examination of the Evidence before the 
" House of Commons," I pledge my word as 
a man, and my character as a professional per- 
son, to prove them all. Nay, further, I pledge 
myself if more cases are necessary, to produce 
many, alas ! too many more, of Variolous In- 
fection caught after regular Vaccination. 
But of the abundant number of cases laid 
before the Public, the majority cannot be 
either mistated or unfounded ; and if so, the 



44 



cause of the Committee falls at once to the 
ground. For granting-, (what never can be 
granted) that only one third of the cases ad- 
duced were substantiated, there would remain 
above one hundred and fifty instances of ac- 
knowledged failure : and surely these would be 
sufficient to convince any dispassionate person, 
that Vaccination is not, and cannot be a pre- 
servative against the Small Pox. What shall 
we say then, when in addition to this it is 
proved, that several patients have died of the 
immediate consequences resulting from the 
puncture of Vaccination ; while on the other 
hand it never was, or could be with any truth 
asserted, that similar fatal consequences had 
in a single instance resulted from the punc- 
ture of Small Pox Inoculation ? The inocu- 
lated patient, if he dies, (which is not one in 
three hundred in the general irregular mode 
of proceeding, and not one in a thousand 
among observant practitioners,) dies of Small 
Pox, and of nothing but Small Pox ; the ap- 
pearance of the punctured arm is uniformly 
the same ; and the treatment of it is one of 
those judicious points in Surgery, peculiar to 
Baron Dimsdale's method of cure. 

The Committee, to exonerate the Society 



45 

from the censures of repeated failures, state ; 
that many persons not acquainted with the 
Disease, have undertaken to vaccinate, and 
that much of the consequent ill success has 
resulted from this circumstance. But they 
forget that the principal evidence they them- 
selves adduced to support their cause, before 
the House of Commons was that of a Clergy- 
man ; they forget too that several of the Fa- 
natical Preachers among the Sectaries, have 
been ever since the most zealous and ap- 
proved champions of their system, both in their 
preachings, and practice ; together with some 
Ladies, who have received their instructions 
from Dr. Jenner himself. So that the same 
set of people who are disowned, when it is 
convenient to disown them, are brought for- 
ward as good evidence, when it suits the 
cause. Is not this another instance of that 
mala fides, which throws a just suspicion over 
the cause altogether ? 

But laying aside these equivocal practi- 
tioners, among the ignorant, the Committee, I 
presume, do not mean to class Mr. Wachsell, 
Apothecary to the Small Pox Hospital ; or 
Mr. Ring, the Accoucheur; and yet from the 
patients vaccinated by these two persons, I 



46 



Would bring instances, if the House of Com- 
mons were again to demand it of me, of more 
failures, more deaths, and more diseases than 
have occurred in the practice of any other 
two persons who have come within my know- 
ledge 

It is further asserted by the Committee, 
that when the Small Pox occurs after Vac- 
cination, it is more mild than usual, and loses 
some of its characteristic marks ; but in many 
cases in which it recurs after Inoculation, or 
the natural disease, it is particularly severe, 
sometimes fatal. 

This article appears to me extremely objec- 
tionable and disingenuous. For, not to men- 
tion the improper use of the words, many cases 
of the recurrence of the Small Pox ; the Com- 
mittee here argue from an assumption of their 
own, which, as fair and honest reasoners, 
as men having no other object than the in- 
vestigation of truth, they never ought to have 
done. Their assertion is, that though Small 
Pox does sometimes recur after Vaccination, 
this circumstance is not to create any alarm ; 
for when it does return, it is so mild that 
even its existence is doubtful > whereas in 
many cases in which it recurs after Inoculation, 



47 

it is particularly severe and often fatal. Thus 
arbitrarily to assume the fact, that Small 
Pox does occur after Inoculation, a fact de- 
nied by the Advocates of Vaccination them- 
selves, and then to build on it an argument 
in favour of their system, is in my mind 
a mode of proceeding bordering on criminality. 
For if the Committee were addressing their 
Reports to Medical Men only, no great mis- 
chief would ensue, since the fallacy would be 
immediately detected, and any ai'gument built 
upon it w r ould of course fall to the ground. 
But as the Committee are addressing their 
Report to Parents, who being ignorant of 
the history of Diseases, are compelled to rely 
implicitly on those who profess to tell them 
the truth, they ought to have remembered it 
was a solemn duty in their statement of the 
case, to have " turned neither to the right 
hand, nor to the left." They ought to have 
told their readers, that the recurrence of 
Small Pox after Inoculation was a fact, sup- 
ported by such slender evidence, so contrary 
to the laws of nature, and so generally dis- 
credited, that when it does occur, as is sup- 
posed a second time, this is considered as 
a proof that the disorder which the patient 



48 

nad m the first instance, was not the Small 
Pox. That the Committee therefore omitting' 
all this should boldly beg the question, and 
argue from that as proved, which is one oi 
the points in dispute, is such an instance of 
unfair reasoning as perhaps it would be dif- 
ficult to parallel. 

The assertion of the Committee in the XX th 
article, that the * Diseases which are said to 
originate from Cow Pox are scrophulous, and 
cutaneous, and similar to those which arise 
from Inoculation, is according to my obser- 
vation quite incorrect. Many of the eruptions 
are perfectly novel. As far as my experience 
and my information go, I will venture to 
affirm they are eruptions of a nature unknown 
before the introduction of Vaccination ; and 
peculiar to those who have been Vaccinated. 

Such was the case of the child in Jermyn 
Street : such was that of a child near Guild- 



* The words of the Committee are — " Complaints re- 
presented as the effects of Vaccine Inoculation, when in 
fact they originated from other causes." This is another 
instance of the bold manner in which the Committee 
assert, to get rid of difficulties. What proof is advanced 
that the complaints did originate in other causes ? Nont 
but the ipse dixit of the writer. 



49 

ford vaccinated by Dr. Elliot ; and of many 
more whose names, from respect to the pa- 
rents, I forbear to mention. 

As for Latchford's child*, that case differed 
as much in every essential characteristic from 
Scrophula as possible. The first appearance, 
the encrease, the colour of the suppurating 1 
part, and the indelible dark Eschar, all 
marked a new and undescribed disease. 
Scrophula is a useful name on various occa- 
sions. But its symptoms are well known and 
defined ; they cannot lon^r be confounded with 
those of any other disease : and when a little 
experience shall have made the distinction 
clear, then, if I mistake not, many a babe 
whose parents transmitted to it the fibres of 
health and vigour, shall lament the dire effects 
of unsatisfactory experiment ; w hile those who 
may escape the ravages of any new disorder, 
will still tremble lest that dreaded evil, the 



* I saw her father yesterday, she is now fifteen years 
old, and a living monument of Cow Pox, since Mr. 
Birch's death, she is in and out of St. Bartholomew's 
Hospital, a deplorable object, just now in an Infirmary by 
the sea side, and happy if Heaven would release her. 

August, 1817. P* BIRCH. 



50 

natural Small Pox, which they sought to avoid, 
should in a luckless hour overtake them. 

It is not my intention to pursue further the 
Report of the Jennerian Committee. I have 
answered whatever applies materially to my 
argument : to expose all the errors and fallacies 
it contains, would be a painful task : I should 
however be unjust to the Public and myself, 
did I not state, that besides those I have al- 
ready noticed, there are in it assertions so un- 
founded, and expressions so ambiguous, that 
these alone would have deterred me from sub- 
scribing it. 

Thus in Article XVI. it is said, that by 
means of Vaccination, the Small Pox has in 
some populous Cities been wholly extermi- 
nated. 

In Article XVIII. that the prejudice raised 
against Vaccination has been, in great mea- 
sure, the cause of the death of near 2,000 per- 
sons this present year, in London alone. 

In Article III. that the cases published to 
prove the failure of Vaccination, have been 
for the most part fully refuted ; and 

In Article IV. those Medical IVlen who dis- 
sent from the Jennerian Committee, are stated 
generally, as acting perversely and disingenu- 



51 

ously ; persisting in bringing' forward unfound- 
ed and refuted reports; and even misrepre- 
sentations, alter they have been proved to be 
such. 

Of these Articles I am compelled to say, 
and am ready to prove, that the three first are 
absolutely unfounded. Of the last I must de- 
clare, that it seems to me conceived in a spirit 
of illiberality and ungenerous censure, such as 
I should have imagined a Committee formed 
of Gentlemen never would have used; and 
which certainly no circumstances can justify. 

I presume not to judge the motives of ac- 
tion in others; I know my own, and 1 am 
conscious of my sincerity. If I could be actu- 
ated by party spirit, I should be unworthy the 
confidence of the Public. I seek for Truth^ and 
Truth alone. With indignation therefore do 
I reject the charge of acting perversely, and 
disingenuously. When I am convinced of 
error, I shall take a pride in acknowledging 
my mist ike; 'till then I shall consider it my 
duty to declare my opinion openly, and to 
state the reasons, why I have from the first 
asserted, and why I still continue to assert, 
that I fear the experiment of Vaccination will 
fi2 



52 

be found injurious to the peace, the health, 
and the welfare of society.* 

But since motives of action are called in 
question, let me mention a few of the circum- 
stances that have contributed to influence my 
conduct : they will be found to bear more 
upon the argument than may at first be ima- 
gined. I will afterwards proceed to offer a 
few strictures on Mr. J. Moore's pamphlet. 

* Though I admit with the Committee, the impropriety 
of discussing subjects of serious investigation in any other 
than a serious style, I must object to the manner in which 
they have worded their Vth Article. Having said, some 
" printed accounts, adverse to Vaccination, have treated 
" the subject with indecent and disgusting levity," (ex- 
pressions I think much too strong and coarse) they add, 
" as if the good or evil of society, were fit objects for sar- 
" casm and ridicule." This seems to me an invidious, 
and an unfair manner of stating the question. The good 
and evil of society never were the objects of ridicule. 
But a system being advanced, which it was apprehended 
would ultimately prove an evil, not a good, it was thought 
proper to attack that system : and while *some chose the 
sober method of argument, f others preferred that of ri- 
dicule : still however, it was the system, not the good or 
evil, that was ridiculed : and that system was ridiculed 
only so far as it was judged likely to injure, rather than 
benefit society. 

* Mr. Rogers, and Mr. Lipscombe. f Dr. Moseley, Lues Bovilla 



m 

The paper which I published in the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, and which I shall here re- 
print, shews the ground I had to stand upon, 
in opposing 1 the experiment at its very com- 
mencement. I have never changed my opi- 
nion ; I have uniformly maintained that it 
was a dangerous practice to introduce a new 
source of disease into the human frame. 

If I have been firm in my sentiments, it is 
because I have met with nothing in the sequel 
that has shaken my judgement. 

It is true the opinion of some of my col- 
leagues was in direct opposition to mine. I, 
therefore, felt it incumbent on me, carefully 
and dispassionately to observe the result of the 
experiment. I did so : I read what was pub 
lished ; and I found from time to time such 
contradiction in the Reports of the advocates 
for Vaccination ; such fluctuation in their 
opinion; such inconsistency in their practice; 
that the most favourable conclusion I could 
draw was, they knew not what they were 
doing. Surely this did not authorize me to 
alter my original position. 

To obviate the objections naturally raised 
from this extreme uncertainty, and which evi- 
dently affected the soundness of the principle 



54 

on which the System rested ; Vaccination was 
divided into Spurious, and Genuine. I fore- 
saw the consequences. 1 was satisfied that 
the Jennerian Society, having* once embarked 
in the cause, would have recourse to any ex- 
pedient, rather than abandon it : and finding 
I stood nearly single, and that the tide of 
opinion set strong against me, I patiently 
submitted to have my judgement called in 
question for a season, resolving to wait a 
proper period to explain my reasons of dis- 
sent. 

The Cases of Mr. Hodge's Children oc- 
curred, confirming the truth of Mr. Goldson's 
Reports. I then thought it my duty to print 
my opinions in support of what that Gentleman 
had advanced. What I then wrote, and all 
I have written since, has been couched in 
the language of seriousness, and candour, 
not of levity or prejudice. Never shall I be 
ashamed that I was the first to express a doubt 
whether Inoculation, so perfectly understood, 
and so successfully managed as it was, ought 
to be abandoned for a mere Experiment; 
holding the change too serious a matter to be 
trifled with : neither shall I ever be ashamed 
to say, that I viewed with indignant scorn the 



55 



ungenerous artifice adopted by the Jennerian 
Society, of sticking up in every Station house, 
in the Vestries of fanatical Chapels, and in 
Sunday Schools, that false, Comparative view 
of the Effects on Individuals, and Society, by 
the Small Pox, and the Com Pox, ornamented 
with tablets like a School-boy's writing-piece, 
representing to the gaping multitude a fright- 
ful picture of Inoculation, with the supposed 
misery attendant on it ; and exhibiting repre- 
sentations equally false and exaggerated of 
the blessings of Vaccination. When 1 saw 
this, and afterwards understood that these dis- 
graceful Pictures were intended for the use of 
our distant Colonies, where the Truth would 
long be concealed, and Argument be totally 
lost, I was compelled to suspect, still more 
and more, not only the goodness of the cause 
itself, but the Candour of those who stooped 
to such means in its support. 

Soon after this I heard with great surprize 
that an application had been made to Dr. 
More, Archbishop of Canterbury, persuading 
his Grace to direct the Clergy of the Church 
of England to recommend Vaccination from 
their pulpits. 

I received a letter from the Palace at Lam- 



56 



beth, desiring to know if I changed the 
opinion I had originally advanced; and a re- 
spectable Clergyman waited on me from his 
Grace to talk with me on the subject. With- 
out entering into any argument, I contented 
myself with relating to him all I knew : 
shewed him my correspondence with other 
medical men on the subject, and left him to 
judge for himself. — He retired from me, 
saying, " His Grace must not commit the 
" Church" — This transaction is perfectly well 
known I believe to all the Partisans of Vac- 
cination. Why it has never been hinted at by 
any of the writers in favour of the Cause, and 
why it has been concealed, is a secret best 
known to themselves, and the Jennerian Com- 
mittee. 

These circumstances occasioned an en- 
creased degree of distrust in my mind ; and 
called more loudly for care and circumspec- 
tion ; especially when 1 recollected the Anni- 
versary dinner of Mr. Guy's hospital in 1802, 
where I expected to meet the Professors, the 
Medical Gentlemen, and the Students ; on the 
same terms as usual. What was my surprise 
then to find, that the sole business of the meet- 
ing was to begin a canvass for names to a 



57 



petition to Parliament, in support of Dr. 
Jenner's bill? it was presented to me, and 
I refused to sign it. 

My surprise was increased after the dinner, 
to find that toasts, songs, and compliments 
from one Professor to another in honour of 
Vaccina, were the order of the day. 

As I had seen, among" the various business 
of life, some political manoeuvres, and the 
management of some party schemes, I was 
not at a loss to conjecture in what manner the 
cause of Vaccination would be carried on. 

The Royal Patronage, the authority of Par- 
liament would be made use of, beyond what 
the sanction given warranted : the command 
of the Army and Navy would be adduced, not 
merely as the mean of facilitating the experi- 
ment, but as proof of the triumph of the cause : 
and above all, the monopoly of the press, and 
the freedom of the Post Office would be em- 
ployed to circulate the assertions of the friends 
of Vaccination, and to suppress the arguments 
of their opponents. 

What I foresaw happened : and such was 
the influence of the Jennerian Society, that 
many publishers, and booksellers refused to 
print, or sell such works as might be deemed 



68 



adverse to Vaccine Inoculation : in conse- 
quence of which it was hardly possible, at the 
first moment, to contradict any thing the 
Society chose to assert. It was in vain to 
argue against the system ; for even the Ladies 
themselves w 7 ere prejudiced, were influenced, 
and employed in its defence. Men midwives 
found their interests were essentially connected 
in its success ; and they foresaw that if they 
could vaccinate at the breast, without danger 
of conveying infection, they should secure 
to themselves the nursery, as long as Vacci- 
nation lasted : no one could enter to interfere 
with them; they would prescribe for the 
Apothecary, and hold him at a distance ; the 
Physician and Surgeon would be set aside; 
and if any accident occurred that rendered 
a dissection after death necessary, some ana- 
tomist, friendly to the cause might be called 
in to quiet the alarms of a family. 

The College of Physicians seem at last to 
have opened their eyes to the innovations of 
these practitioners, who, like the Jesuits of 
old, through the medium of the female 
branches, aim at managing the whole family. 

They have therefore forbidden them to pre- 
scribe in future for children above two years 



59 

old ; that safe age, before which, unless in 
peculiar cases, according to Baron Dimsdale, 
Inoculation ou^ht not to be performed ; and 
that for self evident reasons. For if the loss 
of beauty, or the probability of danger are 
proportionate to the crop of pustules in the 
face, who, but one ignorant of Surgery, would 
advise that bed of roses, the blooming cheeks 
of an infant, during the eruptive fever of 
Small Pox, to be applied to the warm breast 
of a well fed nurse? What maturating poultice 
is more likely to invite the pustules to that 
part ? Against this practice every notion of 
sound sense revolts ; and I will venture to 
affirm that the majority of children who 
suffer from Inoculation, are those inoculated 
at the breast. 

When therefore such pains are taken to 
magnify the numbers that fall victims to 
Small Pox, why is not this pernicious custom, 
which every sound practitioner reprobates, 
taken into the account ? and why is it not 
remembered that in the populous parts of the 
Metropolis, where the abundance of children 
exceed the means of providing' food, and 
raiment for them, this pestilential disease is 
considered as a merciful provision on the 



60 

part of Providence, to lessen the burthen of a 
poor man's family? 

Let the College of Physicians, who exa- 
mine the Apothecaries' shops in the narrow 
streets and suburbs of London, report the 
state of the medicines, the scales and mea- 
sures, and the annual reproofs they are con- 
strained to make to many, where, 

*' among the shelves 

A beggarly account of empty boxes, 
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, 
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses 
Are thinly scattered to make up a shew/' 

and then, we shall in some measure be able 
to determine how little can with justice be 
urged against any particular mode of practice, 
from the frequency of deaths among the 
poorer classes of mankind.* 

* One of the most prevalent causes of death among 
infants, is the loss of their mother's milk. Women who 
abandon their own children, to sell their milk to a 
stranger, will be found too frequently to have destroyed 
their deserted babes. An Hospital under the Queen's 
patronage, was settled at Bay's- Water, to receive the 
children thus deserted, but it subsisted a very short 
period, for all the children died. The Foundling Hos- 
pital, the Enfant trouve at Paris, and the registers of 
large parishes, will elucidate this fact ; but it is never 
mentioned in the Bills of Mortality. 






61 

Enough has been said to explain why from 
the first, I was led to regard with a certain 
decree of suspicion, the conduct of the 
friends of Vaccination ; and why I have 
uniformly disapproved their proceedings. It 
remains to make some observation on an in- 
genious pamphlet written by Mr. J. Moore, 
hitherto the best defender of the Jennerian 
cause. What Dr. Thornton will produce, 
who has announced himself employed by the 
Committee, to answer the wit of Dr. Moseley, 
and the sober arguments of Mr. Lipscombe, 
the event will prove.* 

With respect to Mr. J. Moore, he certainly 
deserves some praise for the pleasant manner 
in which he has treated the subject : but 
much more for the candour he has shown. I 
must do him the justice to point this out, lest 
the Reader, seduced by his pleasantry, should 
suffer himself to misconstrue the author's in- 
tentions. 

I cannot, however, discover in Mr. J. 



* Dr. Thornton, after suffering himself to be made the 
Instrument of t v -_ Jennerian Society, has been refuted by 
Dr. Moseley, and complainsthat he is disgracefully treated 
by the College of Physicians. 



62 

Moore's pamphlet, any answer to the argu- 
ments of Mr. Rogers ; or any thing like a 
reply to the five questions in my printed 
Letter. A particular reply indeed I was not 
to expect; for it is the plan to unite all the 
writers against Yaccination in one class ; 
wishing that a censure applicable to any one 
of them individually, may attach to them all 
generally. As I do not approve this method, 
which is unfair and sophistical, I shall not 
follow it ; neither will I pay his ingenuity so 
bad a compliment, as to couple him with Mr. 
Ring, to whom, perhaps, Mr. Squirrel is a 
more thane qual antagonist. 

Mr. Moore, in the beginning of his book, for 
what reason 1 cannot discern, pays a studied 
compliment to the humanity of the Faculty 
of Medicine, at the expense of Surgeons. 
But he must allow me to say, it is the j . euliar 
boast of Surgery, to have softened the malig- 
nity, and to have discovered the cure of two 
of thegi eatest evils that afflict mortality ; in 
the judicious practice of Inoculation, and by 
the improved treatment of Lues Venerea. 

Surgery has positive grounds to rest upon, 
which will for ever secure to it the gratitude, 
and the support of mankind; if it ever 



63 



should lose any part of its due estimation, this 
will be owing- to the unwarrantable presump- 
tion of some, who practise it without being* 
properly educated in its principles. 

Every Apothecary's journeyman, lectured 
for six months to pass an examination for the 
lower ranks of the Army and Navy, now 
pretends to be a proficient in this art. 

The fatal consequences that result from 
uneducated practitioners in every branch of 
medicine assuming the province of the Sur- 
geon, and experimenting on Inoculation, is 
justly depicted in the Report of the Jenne- 
rian Society. Mr* Moore makes the same 
observation, and tells us, that the results from 
this general practice were so different to the 
accounts of Dr. Jenner and his friends, that 
many experiments were set on foot, in order 
to establish a permanent t; jory. By these it 
was ascertained, that Dr. Jenner's account of 
the origin of the disease was unfounded, and 
untrue. This was a distressing circumstance 
to befal the great Father of the Experiment, 
as he was called, who ought certainly to have 
been, morally speaking, sure of his principle 
of action, before he ventured to propose it to 
the Public, or petition Parliament for a re- 



64 

ward for his discoveries. It was now asked, 
what had he discovered ? What had he re- 
commended ? What were his principles as 
well in Theory, as Practice? These were 
auk ward questions ; to answer them was 
difficult: therefore to avoid the perplexing 
appeals that were daily made to him, and 
the messages that were perpetually sent re- 
questing him to visit untoward cases, the 
Doctor retired from London. Had matters 
gone on smoothly, the Doctor would have 
found it his interest to have remained in the 
Metropolis. 

The horrihle description which Mr. Moore 
paints of the Confluent Small Pox, and of 
the Lues Venerea, may be just : but as they 
happily are not often seen, if ever, where 
proper treatment can be procured, and will 
be followed ; they stand as extreme cases, on 
which the rhetorician may declaim, indeed, 
but from which the sound reasoner can draw 
no conclusive argument. I see not, there- 
fore, what Mr. Moore gains to his cause by 
the description. I must, however, thank him 
for it, as he thus affords me an opportunity of 
saying, that it is the pride of Surgery, to have 
reduced the mortality consequent on the first 



65 

of these disorders, to one in a thousand ; and 
that attendant on the last, to nearly the same 
proportion. 

The Natural Small Pox might almost al- 
ways be avoided, if Inoculation were duly 
performed : and instances of persons dying of 
Lues Venerea, except in ill conducted Work- 
houses, are almost unknown to regular Sur- 
geons. 

Mr. Moore asserts that Vaccination was 
opposed before any facts could be alleged 
against it. But in so early a stage of the 
business as when before the Committee of 
the House of Commons, I brought three cases, 
and named Jour others, of Small Pox fol- 
lowing Vaccination. Was this opposing 
without facts? Nay, it was these very cases 
that taught Dr. Woodville, what he had mis- 
taken for an Hybrid Eruption, was real 
Small Pox -, and which made Mr. Cline 
acknowledge, that Vaccination would not 
prevent Small Pox, where the patient had 
breathed variolous atmosphere. 

Our Author goes on to relate the rapidity 
with which Vaccination was spread through 
every part of the world. That the progress 
of Vaccination was rapid, beyond almost 

F 



m 



belief, I readily admit: that this circum- 
stance is a proof of the merits of the System 
I deny. — We live in a capricious age ; an 
age that is fond of believing paradoxes, and 
of grasping at novelty. And this alone might 
account for the wonderful avidity with which 
the experiment was adopted. But there 
were other causes that co-operated, and 1 
have already specified them. So long as the 
liberty of the Post Office was allowed, and 
the Press was in possession of the Society, 
had their scheme been more objectionable 
than it is, it would with facility have been at 
home propagated ; and as for the Continent, 
English faith stood so firm there about that 
period, that any thing from England was 
received as sterling. Yet I had accounts 
even from the Continent, very different to Mr. 
Moore's representation ; accounts which la- 
mented the too easy faith of some Hano 
verian parents, whose children were the 
victims of this new experiment. 

Mr. Moore's candour begins to shew itself 
about the ninth page, where he admits this 
Cow Pox to be erroneously attributed to that 
gentle Animal. " No Cow that is allowed 
" to suckle her own Calf, untouched by the 



# 



" Milker, ever had this complaint." He 
concludes therefore, that the Vaccine Disease 
is some pollution imposed upon the harmless 
Animal by contact of the Milker. This I 
can readily believe to be the case. We do 
not understand indeed by what law of Nature 
the corrupt humour of a human disease, 
acting- on the teats of a harmless animal, can 
generate a new disorder ; but it seems to be 
the only rational way of accounting 1 for the 
phenomenon ; and nothing remains for us 
but to enquire what that disease is, which 
being communicated from the Milker, pro- 
duces the Vaccine Matter. — Is it the Itch? 
the Lues Venerea ? or the Small Pox itself? 
— It evidently must be something common 
among the lower orders, for with them it 
originates: I could almost be tempted to 
think it was often the Itch. 

A man applied to me at St. Thomas's 
Hospital to examine his hand and arm, 
which were full of ulcerations. He said he 
belonged to a milk house near the end of 
Kent street ; that several of the milkers 
were in the same condition with himself; 
and that most of the cows' teats, belonging 
to the house, were affected in a similar man- 

f2 



68 

ner ; he added, he had been told it was Covr 
Pox. 

As I had not been accustomed to see the 
natural Cow Pox, I asked one of my Pupils 
from the country, what he thought of the 
case. He replied, that the patient exhibited 
every symptom of having the itch, in that 
stage, which is commonly called the Rank 
Itch. On farther examination, the appear- 
ance about the fingers confirmed his observa- 
tion ; I directed the man to use Jackson's 
Itch Ointment, and he appeared again, at the 
end of a week, quite cured. 

From this accidental circumstance, and 
from the tormenting itching which some chil- 
dren, when vaccinated, are afflicted with, it 
will be worth while for the Committee to en- 
quire whether the itch may not be one of the 
diseases that form the base of the Vaccine Mat- 
ter. At all events, since the Cow is proved 
innocent, and the Milker alone guilty, it will 
be proper to ascertain what the complaints 
are to which the Milkers in Gloucestershire, 
and in Holstein, are liable. 

Dr. Jenner's theory of the grease of the 
horse, is now given up, even by his best 
friends : but surely, it is time either for him- 



m 

self or them to find us some just criterion that 
may enable us to distinguish the genuine 
source from which it originates. Why, how- 
ever, are we forbidden to inoculate from the 
Cow herself? Does her simple food increase 
the virulence of that disease with which the 
foul milker contaminates her teats ? Or again, 
must the disease be meliorated by passing 
through some human victim, who is perhaps 
to be sacrificed in consequence, before it can 
be fit for general use ? 

What the Small Pox is, we know ; and we 
know also, that when given properly by Ino- 
culation, it will communicate a mild disease 
to the human frame. I say we are fully ac- 
quainted with the benefits and the manage- 
ment of that meliorated contagion; a ma- 
nagement so simple, that we have little to ap- 
prehend even from the unskilfulness of igno- 
rant practitioners \ and a benefit so unalloyed, 
that the experience of now near a century has 
proved, that the use of it does not contribute 
to swell the catalogue of human woes by new 
disorders. I see not therefore what wisdom 
there is in wishing to drop Small Pox Inocu- 
lation altogether, (for that is the clamorous 
demand of the Jennerian Society) ; and in- 



70 

oculate from a disease, the nature of which 
we know not : a disease so varying, and so 
ambiguous in its appearance and effects, that 
even the most skilful Vaccinator, even Dr. 
Jenoer himself, who has proudly suffered him- 
self to be called, " The man destined to expel 
contagion/'* cannot be certain when it is 
communicated, and when not; when it is ge- 
nuine, when spurious \ a disease that has al- 
ready given suffering mortality a new ma. 
lady, which, whether it shall be called the 
Cow Evil, from the animal, or the Jennerian 



* When Dr. Jenner's bust was exposed at the Exhi- 
bition last year, it was subscribed, if I mistake not, with 
the following lines of the (Edipus Tyrannus of Sopho- 
cles. 

The Man- 
By great Apollo's high command ordain M 
T* expel the foul contagion from this land ; 
Nursed there too long, but to be nursed no more. 

Dr. J. was, I understand, wonderfully pleased with the 
application, which certainly was very ingenious, and only 
wanted truth to be really admirable. If a second Bust 
were to appear, I apprehend a more appropriate, though 
less splendid motto would be 

Davus sum, non CEdipus. 



71 



Evil from the inventor, posterity will deter- 
mine. 

But why do I say the inventor ? I beg pardon 
of this" expeller of contagion," if I state, that 
the Cow Pox has been known for generations. 
If it has not been brought forward before, the 
reason is, that the Physicians of former days, 
less confident, and less empiiick than some of 
the present, thought it unbecoming their cha- 
racter, and what they owed Society, to ob- 
trude any experiment, which they were not 
fully satisfied was a salutary one. They there- 
fore tried it in silence ; they found, notwith- 
standing an apparent success at first, that it 
failed ultimately, and they dropped it. I 
shall instance no other name than that of Sir 
George Baker, who had Dr. Jenner's inven- 
tion mentioned to him forty years ago -, it was 
tried ; it failed, and no more was said of it. 
Mr. John Hunter did not give the Experi- 
ment much credit. The event justifies their 
conduct: for surely it does not do much honour 
to the cause, much less does it accord with 
the positive assurances given Parliament, 
for Dr. Jenner to lay down a Theory, to be 
obliged to recant it, and to leave the Public 
nothing satisfactory in its place : it does us 



72 



nationally no great honour to have the Cow 
Pox make so much noise all over the world, 
and then to be declared no Cow Pox : neither 
does it argue much in favour of the wisdom of 
the Faculty, to adopt so bliinily a praciice, 
which the first Leaders seem to know nothing 
about after seven years experience, except, 
that it fully contradicts the evidence they pro- 
duced in the House of Commons in its favour^ 

It is allowed by all the writers among the 
Vaccinists, that from the Cow is to be got a 
genuine and a spurious matter. I cannot un- 
derstand this doctrine; it seems contrary to 
the general Laws of Nature ; she has given 
us a genuine but no spurious Small Pox : a 
genuine but no spurious Measles. More mer- 
ciful in her operations than Vaccinators ; she 
gives us a specific evil, that we may know 
how to administer specific remedies; and 
when we may be securely freed from the dread 
of its recurrence. 

But since a genuine and a spurious Cow 
Pox is admitted by Vaccinists, how do they 
account for it? 'Till wiser heads than mine 
have determined this point, 1 will suggest the 
following conjecture : — 

It is allowed on all hands, that Cow Pox is 



73 

generated by some disorder imparted by the 
milker. Now if that disorder should happen 
to be the Small Pox, then the Pustule so occa- 
sioned, and the matter coming from it, may 
inoculate Small Pox, and the patient thus 
inoculated may be for ever secure from that 
disease, for in fact he will have received 
Small Pox Inoculation. But if the disorder 
generated on the Cow's teats, have for its 
base Itch, as I apprehend has sometimes hap- 
pened, then the patient will be inoculated with 
a disorder, which, though it may suspend the 
capacity for Small Pox for a season in the 
constitution, will ultimately prove no security. 

Notwithstanding Mr. Moore's pleasant way 
of treating the subject, be cannot laugh away 
this simple argument. 

If there is no such disease belonging to the 
Animal as Cow Pox, if she must be subject to 
infections from the hand of him to whom she 
spares her milk, and sacrifices her calf, let us 
be acquainted with the nature of these infec- 
tions, and do not let us so inhumanly submit 
our babes, while smiling in the mother's face, 
to, iv e know not what. 

In the Small Pox, and other infectious dis- 
orders, I repeat, we know of nothing spu- 



74 

rious ; the matter inoculated from a patient 
who may die afterwards of the Confluent 
Small Pox, will produce nothing but a mild 
disease ; nothing but Small Pox. 

When the Societies quarrelled, and parted, 
they were almost upon the point of declaring, 
that one was the genuine, the other the spu- 
rious Society, for exterminating the Small 
Pox. This would have been a death blow to 
the whole system. The friends of both par- 
ties saw this ; an accommodation was effected; 
like the contending heroes on the stage, they 
said, " Brother, brother, we are both in the 
wrong ;" they shook hands, and agreed at all 
events to support the Experiment. 

I shall not take notice of that part of our 
Author's pamphlet, which attacks the Physi- 
cians ; not only because 1 conceive it beside 
my immediate subject, but because 1 consider 
" The Commentaries on the Cow Pox," lately 
published by Dr. Moseley, to contain a full 
answer to all that Mr. Moore has asserted on 
this head. 

Those pages which are employed in de- 
scribing the nature of Small Pox, and other 
infectious diseases, are well worth attending 
to j though they are written with such affec^ 



75 



tation of wit, that if hastily perused, they 
may be mistaken. 

However, I admire Mr. Moore's candour, 
as I collect from these pages, that he is of 
opinion the Small Pox cannot be twice re- 
ceived; and observe, that he admits so ne 
cases to have occurred, where the Small Pox 
has appeared on persons who had apparently 
passed through the Cow Pox, in a regular 
way. He then concludes, " A trne Pbilo- 
" sopher knows there is no real exception to 
" the Laws of Nature; apparent deviations 
" are common, but the Laws of Nature are 
ff immutable." And again he observes, (( If 
" Medical men were as ready to own their 
" errors as Chemists, they would not so often 
" accuse Nature of being so capricious as 
tc they do. 

M To admit that a few individuals organised 
" like others, are susceptible of having cer~ 
u tain diseases twice, while the flood of man- 
u kind can only have them once, is almost a 
" contradiction in the uniformity of the Laws 
" of Cause and Effect." 

These are sentiments so just in themselves, 
and conceived in such a spirit of candour and 
liberality, that although Mr. Moore discovers 



76 

sometimes a little flippancy of wit he had bet- 
ter have spared, and although he sometimes 
deals too much in authoritative assertion which 
does not sit well on him, I nevertheless sin- 
cerely wish he had been employed earlier in 
the controversy : the question then probably 
would have been more easily decided. 

I lament, however, that he will not suffer 
his own principles to produce with himself 
that conviction I apprehend they ought. 

If a true philosopher knows there are no 
real exceptions to the Laws of Nature, then 
a patient cannot have the Small Pox twice. 
But Mr. Moore admits that patients have had 
real Small Pox after Vaccination ; the disease 
therefore which the Vaccine matter excited, 
could not have been Small Pox ; and conse- 
quently, those patients (except in the cases 
suggested in page 41) remain liable to it, 
as soon as the suspending power of the Vac- 
cine disease shall have ceased. 

This argument is so simple a one, and the 
conclusion in my mind so just, that I feel con- 
fident its force must be felt by every impartial 
person. 

What Mr. Moore says of the primary, and 
secondary Small Pox, in which all sound 



77 

Practitioners will readily concur with hini, 
proves every thing I could wish in favour of 
my argument. 

Whoever has read the Report of the Com- 
mittee of the House of Commons, would con- 
clude from the multitude of evidence there 
adduced, that the practice of Vaccination was 
at that time perfectly settled and understood . 
But Mr. Moore informs us, " All the peculi- 
" arities of this curious complaint were not 
" detected at once. In the first two or three 
iC years it was not to be expected that the Art 
<c of Vaccination should be brought to perfec- 
■f tion. It is therefore not to be wondered at 
u if among the multitude of Surgeons, Apo- 
" thecaries, Clergymen, and Ladies, who prac- 
" tised, a few mistakes have happened." 

That no experiment is perfected at once, 
even where the principles are just, I readily 
allow : it is no more than what must be ex- 
pected from the imperfection of human wis- 
dom. What I complain of, is, that while 
Vaccination was pothing more than an expe- 
riment it should have been, not merely recom- 
mended to the public notice, but authoritatively 
imposed on the public practice. If it should 
be argued that Inoculation was urged with 



78 

nearly as much earnestness; I shall reply that 
the cases are altogether different. Inoculation 
when brought into England was no longer a 
mere experiment : it was a practice confirmed 
by the experience of generations in foreign 
countries : and as the laws of Nature could 
not be supposed to be different here, and in 
Turkey, the opposition made to Inoculation 
might be fairly said to have been the result of 
ignorance and prejudice. 

I must be permitted however to observe, in 
answer to Mr. Moore's statement, that among 
the multitude of Surgeons, hardly any of the 
Court of Assistants of the College are to be 
found. That Parliament should have omitted 
to consult the College of Surgeons, seems to 
me an oversight hardly to be accounted for. 
As Parliament could not be supposed to act 
from any knowledge of their own ; the merits 
of the case not depending on the science of 
politics, or legislation, but on that of surgery 
and medicine, common prudence should have 
dictated the propriety of consulting the Col- 
leges of these two professions, who might be 
supposed competent to give them the infor- 
mation they wanted. When the College of 
Physicians were applied to, they gave a nega- 



79 

tive answer. Had the College of Surgeons 
been consulted, they would have discovered 
a truth, which has not yet been revealed. 
The only surgeons of that court, whose names 
appear in the Report of the Jennerian Society, 
are Mr. Ford, and Mr. Home. 

But the apothecaries are men of experience; 
how came their multitudes to join so readily 
in the experiment ? Why, they came into the 
new practice, because they early discovered 
it was the plan of the men-midwives to seclude 
them, by this manoeuvre, from the nurseries : 
and finding they could not fight them fairly 
on their own ground, they resolved, by form- 
ing an alliance, to share, if possible, the con- 
quest. 

The co-operation of the Clergy (I speak of 
those of the Established Church, and I speak 
of them with that reverence due to so learned 
and so respectable a body ), may be accounted 
for, from that solicitude to benefit the bodies, 
as well as the souls of men, which forms part 
of the ministerial character. I think however 
that they would have done wiser, to have 
waited till the experiment was so firmly esta- 
blished that they could not have stood com- 
mitted by any subsequent failure : for in pre- 



80 

portion to the sacredness of any character 1 , 
ought to be the scrupulous desire of avoiding- 
what might expose it to censure. 

As for the Sectarian preachers, whether in, 
or out of the church, they saw it was an easy 
way of securing acceptance to their peculiar te- 
nets, by stealing under the specious appearance 
of Charity, and Philanthropy, into the bosom 
of maternal tenderness: while the tender sex, 
who from innate benevolence are ever ready 
to assist in doing good, were flattered, were 
soothed, and were instructed, " to insinuate 
" the plot into the boxes." Dr. Jenner took 
so much pains to teach some ladies to vacci- 
nate with a light hand, that one of them de- 
clared she only brought blood from two in the 
village ; and that only one family among her 
patients had shewn any sympton of the Cow 
Pox Disorders. 

Mr. Moore tells us that all the misfortunes 
have happened about Chelsea, and in London; 
and that there has hardly been a suspicion of 
any failures in opulent families. 

There is something very insidious and un- 
just in these assertions : they afford almost the 
only instance of disingenuous reasoning to be 
found in Mr. Moore's book. By stating the fai- 



81 

hires to have occurred round Chelsea, I presume 
he aims at one of the opposers of Vaccination, 
whose practice lying- much in that part of the 
country, if it could be shewn that no cases 
came from other quarters, he would infer that 
those adduced were the result either of the 
want of candour, or want of skill in a preju- 
diced individual : and by asserting* that there 
is hardly any suspicion of failure among the 
opulent, he would insinuate, that those cases 
instanced from among* the poor are not to be 
credited ; the poor not having" the means of 
contradicting 1 what may be asserted of them. 
To the first of these insinuations I reply, 
by saying-, that there are few parts of the 
kingdom from which I will not pledge myself 
to bring instances of failure in Vaccination, as 
notorious as any mentioned in the vicinity of 
Chelsea, and London. 

To the second 1 reply, by asserting that it 
is unfounded. There is a degree of respect 
due to the superior orders of society which 
exacts from us, when speaking of them, an in- 
creased degree of delicacy. To proclaim that 
an afflictive malady has befallen an individual 
in the lower orders of society, can be produc- 
tive of no great inconvenience : to proclaim 

G 



82 

the same of persons who perhaps may be con- 
nected with some of the first families in the 
kingdom, would be a serious evil. I think 
Mr. Moore therefore highly to blame, in using 
an argument which he must be aware from 
a sentiment of delicacy could never perhaps 
be answered as it ought. I trust, however, I 
am not infringing the rule 1 wish to observe 
when I say, that if Dr. Jenner were again to 
apply to Parliament for support, he would 
find from many members of both Houses that 
marked opposition to his pretensions, which 
would prove a full answer to this assertion of 
our Author.* 

Mr. Moore acknowledges one benefit to 
have arisen from the opposition made to Vac- 
cination, namely, the improvement of the 
practice ; and he says, a little more time will 
dispel the prejudices of the inferior prac- 
titioners, and the vulgar. 

If the lower orders of society have con- 
ceived prejudices against Vaccination, it will 
not be easy to root them out : for not only do 
they know from sad experience that it does 
not answer ; but they have been so ungene- 

« ■■■ - i ' i » iiiii - i .... ..i , i ,»... 

* Lord Grosvenor's son, &c. &c. 



S3 

rously deceived and imposed on by the Inocu- 
lators at the Small Pox Hospital, and other 
places, where Cow Pox was inserted when 
they were told they were to be inoculated 
with Small Pox, that they do not know 
where to put their trust. This is such an 
instance of bad faiih, as, I hope, will never 
occur again ; every principle of humanity 
revolts against it. Was it not sufficient to 
have had recourse to every possible mean& of 
perverting the judgment of the poor by every 
artifice ingenuity could suggest, but, when 
still unconvinced of the efficacy of Vaccina- 
tion, they demanded to be inoculated with 
Small Pox, must they be systematically de* 
ceived ? and implicitly relying on the honour 
of the operator, must they be clandestinely 
contaminated with the very disease they were 
anxious to avoid ? 

"• Speak it in whi pers lest a Greek should hear ! 

Lives there a man so dead to fame, who dares 
To think such meanness, or the thought declares : 
And comes it ev'n from him, whose sov'reign sway 
The banded legions of all Greece obey ?" 

Mr. Waeschall I have understood is not 
to be blamed for this imposition on their 
uood faith ; he is but a servant of the cha- 
g2 



84 

rity, and must follow orders. Where 
these orders originate ? Who is to blame ? 
Let us know where to fix the stigma.* 

It has been asserted, that more children 
have died within the last twelve months of 
Small Pox, than in any former year : and 
from this circumstance an argument has been 
raised to discredit Inoculation : but in my 
mind a conclusion exactly opposite ought to 
be drawn from it. 

If the fatality of Small Pox has been 
greater during the last year, than for several 
years preceding, this is owing to the suspen- 
sion of Inoculation, having left more subjects 
open to its infection. For many with whom 
the suspending power of Vaccination had 
subsided, fell unsuspecting victims to the 
natural disease : and many others perished by 

* Small Pox Hospitals, if properly conducted, appear 
to me such useful charities in a great metropolis, that I 
could wish to see them maintained even at the public 
expense: since from such Institutions, every parish 
might be supplied, at stated periods, with proper medical 
men, who should inoculate the poor gratis. By this 
means, and by compelling the parents to abstain from 
public exposure, the evils of Natural Small Pox would in 
a short time be easily subdued. 



85 

it, who had been left open to its attack, be- 
cause their parents justly objected to the un- 
fair proceeding's of those practitioners, who 
substituted Cow Pox for Small Pox ; and 
having thus lost all confidence in the integrity 
of the faculty, and not knowing whom to 
trust, they suffered the natural disease to 
take its fatal course. 

Let us put things upon the old footing ; let 
us drop Vaccination altogether for seven 
years, and practise only Small Pox Inocula- 
tion, and if the mortality in Small Pox do 
not return to its old standard, I will be con- 
tent to give up my opinion, and become as 
devout a worshipper of the cow, as any ido- 
later within the realms of Hindostan, or the 
precincts of Salisbury Court. 

That there always has been a mortality 
attendant on Small Pox, even when Inocula- 
tion alone was adopted, no one can deny. I 
deny, however, that this mortality ever has 
been as great as Mr. Moore asserts, or as the 
friends of Vaccination, eager to establish their 
own system by discrediting the other, have 
wished to make the public to believe. But 
what makes more to the argument is, that it 
will be easy to point out the flagrant error to 



86 

which the mortality may be referred ; name- 
ly, the public exposure of patients during the 
eruptive state of the disorder. A common 
error, which has been made use of to raise a 
prejudice against Inoculation, but which, so 
far from forming a necessary part of the 
treatment, has been expressly forbidden by 
that able and successful practitioner, Baron 
Dimsdale. I cannot help therefore humbly 
suggesting, that the Legislature would do 
well thus far to interfere, and by prohibiting 
under penalty such improper exposure, re- 
medy an evil, which otherwise society must 
continue to suffer from the ignorance, or per- 
versity of unskilful practitioners. 

The last objection I shall notice, is one on 
which it seems to have been the aim of Vac- 
cinators to lay great stress, viz. that what is 
called the King's Evil, generally takes its 
rise from Inoculation : this is particularly de- 
picted in some of the engravings of that dis- 
graceful production I have mentioned in a 
former page, " The View of the comparative 
effects of Inoculation and Vaccination" where 
a patient is represented conversing with his 
Doctor and Nurse, and complaining by a 
label from his mouth, " Sad effects of one Dis- 

3 



87 

ease, Blind, Deaf, and afflicted with the Scro- 
phula /" 

I shall answer this assertion, not by enter- 
ing into any discussion on the nature of Scro- 
phula in general, to do this satisfactorily I 
should be obliged to swell my pamphlet be- 
yond the size calculated for general circula- 
tion ; but by simply adducing matters of 
fact : a mode of arguing to plain and unso- 
phisticated minds always the most agreeable, 
and certainly the most conclusive. 

I must therefore remind Mr. Moore, and 
the partisans of Vaccination, that Scrophula 
was far more prevalent before, than after the 
introduction of Inoculation. 

That it is one of the maladies which is 
supposed to be hereditary, and therefore 
forms a strong objection to infantine inocula- 
tion in those families, where great care 
should be taken to avoid exciting a diseased 
action in the absorbent system. 

But this I shall be told is only a presump- 
tive argument. I grant it : a more positive 
one is, that 1 could adduce some large fami- 
lies of children, where this glandular com- 
plaint has for generations been acknowledged 
to be hereditary, who having been all at a 



88 



proper age inoculated by able practitioners, 
have grown up to full maturity without suf- 
fering from Scrophula, or so much as ever 
exhibiting symptoms of this disorder. 

I have now noticed all that Mr. Moore has 
brought forward in any shape relevant to the 
question ; and the result is, that I am still 
more than ever convinced of the propriety of 
adhering to those opinions, I from the first 
entertained, of the ineflicacy of Vaccination. 

I am willing to pay this Author the com- 
pliment, that if the cause could have been 
defended satisfactorily, it would have been so 
defended by him, 

Si Pergama dextra 
Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent ; 

but, my conviction is, that the system does 
not rest on any solid foundation ; that it never 
can stand. For let us candidly and impar- 
tially sum up all that has been established, 
after the experience of now above seven 
years ; let us compare the result, with the 
promised advantages, and let us come fairly 
to our conclusion. 

When the Committee of the House of 
Commons recommended Dr. Jenner to the 



89 



munificence of Parliament, it was for a dis- 
covery in practice which was never to prove 
fatal ; which was to excite no new humours, 
or disorders in the constitution ; and which 
was to be, not only a perfect security against 
the Small Pox, but would, if universally 
adopted, prevent its recurrence for ever. 

Here then are three distinct points on which 
Dr. Jenner stands pledged to give the public 
the fullest satisfaction ; otherwise, not only 
will he fail in his part of the contract, but the 
experiment itself will fail of having any claim 
to public notice or support. 

Let us see what Dr. Jenner has done to 
establish the justness of his several positions in 
favour of Cow Pox. 

And first, he was called upon, as might na- 
turally be expected, to give an account of the 
origin of the disease itself. 

This could not be considered as a difficult 
task ; for surely Dr. Jenner would not pro- 
pose to inoculate from a disorder without 
knowing what that disorder was. He there- 
fore assured the world, that it originated from 
the grease of the horse's heel, communicated 
by the hands of the milker to the teats of the 
row. 



90 

This theory, which in itself was suspicious, 
by subsequent experiments was proved to be 
erroneous : however, from that hour to the 
present, Dr. Jenner has been able to advance 
nothing satisfactory, and he has left us at this 
very moment in the dark as to the real nature 
and origin of the Vaccine Disease. 

But though Dr. Jenner could not tell us 
what the Cow Pox was, he soon came forward 
to inform us that it was of two sorts, the one 
genuine and harmless, the other spurious and 
hurtful. 

This was a discovery so much the more 
alarming, as at the same time no criterion but 
the effect was given, by which the two sorts 
could be distinguished. Here then was a di- 
rect failure, on the part of Dr. Jenner in his 
agreement, if I may so call it, with the 
Houses of Parliament. 

But yet further. In cases where Vaccina- 
tion did not produce fatal consequences, it 
gave rise to new and painful disorders. It 
was followed sometimes by itchy eruptions J 
sometimes by singular ulcerations ; and some- 
times by glandular swellings, of a nature 
wholly distinct from Scrophula, or any other 
known glandular disease. Here, again, was 



91 

a failure in the second point stipulated : and 
finally, 

It was ascertained, that even when Vaccina- 
tion was performed, from what was called the 
genuine matter, it would not always prove a 
preservative against the Small Pox : as seve- 
ral patients, who had been pronounced by the 
most experienced Vaccinators to have passed 
regularly through the Cow Pox, were never- 
theless attacked with the genuine Small Pox. 

These points being established, and they 
are established by the most uncontested facts, 
facts which the public are not called upon to 
believe on the assertions of those who oppose 
Vaccination, but on the confessions of those 
who support it, how can Dr. Jenner be said 
to have fulfilled what he stood pledged to Par- 
liament to execute? and not fulfilling' his 
agreement, how can his system claim reason- 
ably any longer its support ? 

Were an architect to undertake to build an 
edifice which he engaged should be firm, and 
unshaken in its foundations ; all its rooms 
wind and water tight ; and such as might be 
inhabited with perfect security : if before the 
edifice were well finished the foundations 
were discovered to be rotten ; and if in less 



92 

than seven years, several apartments had 
fallen in and killed those who occupied them, 
while in a great number of rooms, the wind 
or rain was perpetually beating in, could I be 
blamed for declaring that the architect had 
broken his contract, and that the edifice 
ought to be no longer tenanted ? should I de- 
serve the opprobrium of acting perversely, 
and disingenuously, if I advised my friends not 
to quit their own houses, where they had 
lived securely for generations, to occupy 
apartments where they could never be free 
from danger ? Certainly not. Every body 
would say, that in giving this advice I was 
acting the part of a real friend ! Why then 
am I to be told 1 am acting disingenuously or 
perversely, when I remonstrate against the 
general practice of the Cow Pox? for, such 
an edifice as 1 have described above, so rotten 
in its foundation, so ill built, so ruinous, is 
Vaccination. 

Has the conduct of the friends of Vaccina- 
tion, in supporting and recommending their 
system been such as to impress me with a fa- 
vourable opinion of the system ? No ! Their 
conduct has been marked with so much art, 
and trick, and contrivance, nay, so much de- 



.93 

eeit has been resorted to, that this circum- 
stance alone would make me suspect the 
goodness of the cause altogether, and the mo- 
tives that influence its partisans. 

Or again, have the writers in favour of 
Vaccination been able to produce any thing 
that has operated conviction ? Certainly not. 
They have disproved no well attested fact : 
they have confined themselves, for the most 
part, to raillery and contemptuous sneers at 
their opponents ; and the Jennerian Society 
itself, when it publishes a report, advances 
such unfounded assertions, and uses such equi- 
vocal language, as I think never could have 
been employed, had the system been a good 
one. 

Why, then, or on what grounds, am I to 
come into the opinions of the Jennerian So- 
ciety ? Is there any thing in their conduct 
that can prepossess me in their favour ? any 
thing in their practice to recommend them? 

But arguments may be fallacious — let us 
come to facts. Can any one disprove the 
three following" : — 

That Vaccination has been too often fatal: 
That Vaccination has introduced new dis- 
orders into the human system : 



9i 

That Vaccination is not a perfect security 
against the Small Pox. 

These facts, I maintain, can never be dis- 
proved. 

That Vaccination is sometimes fatal may 
be shewn, not vaguely, by assigning- to it the 
subsequent death of the patient, as the onlv 
probable cause, but from destructive inflam- 
mation, which, in some instances, has arisen 
immediately from the puncture of Cow Pox 
Inoculation ; a case that never did occur in 
Small Pox Inoculation. 

That Vaccination introduces new disorders, 
is proved from a new genus of disease, un- 
known to any former practitioner ; unknown 
till after the introduction of the Cow Pox ; 
and never to be found but in those subjects 
who have had that disorder. 

That Vaccination is not a perfect security 
against the Small Pox — we have the confes- 
sion of the Jennerian Committee itself 

Let these facts be considered, and then let 
the concluding sentence of the report of the 
Jennerian Committee be read. 

How, after all that has been established 
and admitted, can it be said " that mankind 
have already derived great and incalculable 



95 

benefits from the discovery of Vaccination ?" 
how can it be maintained there is full cause 
for believing, that Cow Pox inoculation will 
ultimately succeed in extinguishing the Small 
Pox? 

And yet this conclusion is subscribed by a 
list of many respectable names. I really 
could almost be tempted to believe that some 
of those signatures have been applied further 
than was intended : and that there are those 
among the subscribers who, only wishing to 
encourage the experiment, have been made 
appear to support the system. 

However this may be, one thing is certain ; 
those names convey in reality only the opinion 
of so many practitioners. Now, the opinion 
of the wisest men that ever lived, if in opposi- 
tion to facts, must be erroneous, and conse- 
quently of no authority. Besides which, on 
the very score of opinion, something ought to 
be taken into consideration. 

There are persons in the list whose abilities, 
whose character and knowledge I revere ; I 
might instance Dr. Baillie, and some others ; 
but there are those among them whose abili- 
lities, whose character, and knowledge I do 
not revere: whose opinions, consequently, 



96 

have no weight with me, and ought not, I 
think, to have any with the public. 

These then are the grounds on which I feel 
m J self justified in adhering to the opinion I 
first declared before the Committee of the 
House of Commons j and these are the rea- 
sons for which I do not hesitate to pronounce, 
that I think the high sanction that has been 
given to the Cow Pox Experiment, as well 
from the Royal Name, as from the protection 
of Parliament, ought to be withdrawn : for 
that sanction is deservedly of such weight, 
that remote practitioners do not even give the 
subject a consideration, but conclude that a 
system so recommended must be unexcep- 
tionable. 

I trust it will not be supposed, from what 
I have said, that I am presuming to censure 
either that August Personage, or the Houses 
of Parliament, for the support they have af- 
forded the cause of Vaccination. What they 
did arose from that parental solicitude which 
they feel, and never can cease to feel for the 
welfare of individuals, and the happiness of 
the community : and though I may think the 
experiment was not sufficiently tried before 
it was recommended, still they did but exer- 



97 

cise that principle, which has been so often 
exerted for the public good ; and which has 
procured us blessings, eminently greater than 
any enjoyed by the other nations of the world* 
That Dr. Jenner should have been remu- 
nerated by the munificence of Parliament, I 
conceive to be no more than just ; on this ge- 
neral principle, that he who neglects his own 
private interests, in order to promote the pub- 
lic benefit, has some claim for public com- 
pensation. That the experiment itself should 
have been made, I likewise think wise ; be- 
cause it is only from experiment that we can 
ascertain what is, or what is not, beneficial to 
society. But I can neither think it just nor 
wise, that when Vaccination has failed in so 
many points of accomplishing those ends it 
promised to accomplish ; it should still con- 
tinue to receive that degree of sanction and 
support, which a completely successful and 
unobjectionable practice alone is entitled to 
enjoy. 



H 



TttJE following paper was originally printed 
m 1804, and circulated among- my intimate 
friends, and some of the Faculty, as a private 
appeal to them in vindication of the opinion, 
against Vaccination, I had delivered before 
the Committee of the House of Commons. 

In 1805 it appeared in the Gentleman's 
Magazine, the only publication that then 
would venture to insert any thing adverse to 
the Vaccine System. I now re-print it, to- 
gether with my Letter to Mr. Rogers, and 
his Examination of the Evidence before the 
Committee of the House of Commons, that 
every candid person may judge how far the 
language I have used in investigating this 
question is illiberal and improper ; or, how 
far the manner in which I have conducted the 
enquiry has been either perverse or disinge- 
nuous. 

The celebrated Dr. George Fordyce main- 
tained it as his opinion, to others as well as 
myself, that Vaccination was an unnatural ex- 
periment, unphilosophical, and unsafe. The 
arguments he adduced in confirmation of this 
opinion were so logical, and conclusive, I am 
more than ever satisfied my sentiments will 
not be found erroneous. 



99 

Having now discharged my duty to- 
wards the Public, and the Profession, I shall 
henceforth take leave of the subject : and 1 
quit it without any unbecoming fears or ap- 
prehensions. I feel a well grounded persua- 
sion that my opinions will ultimately be ac- 
knowledged to be just; and at all events, 
when time shall have abated somewhat of 
Party Spirit, I am confident justice will be 
done to my Sincerity. 

Magna est Veritas et pravalebit. 

Had the Inoculation for what has been 
called Cow Pox succeeded, agreeably to the 
sanguine promises and expectations of its ad- 
vocates, I should have thought myself called 
upon to recant the opinion I gave to the Com- 
mittee of the House of Commons, and to apo- 
logize for having persevered in it; but as the 
experiment has failed in several instances, and 
the truth can no longer be concealed from the 
Public, I think it necessary to appeal to the 
judgment of discerning persons, whether I 
have not been treated with much injustice for 
firmly maintaining an opinion for which I had 
such strong grounds. 

H 2 



J 00 

It was a maxim banded down to us while I 
was a Student at St. Thomas's Hospital, 
" Never to sacrifice Experience to Experi- 
ment ;" and therefore in Diseases for the 
treatment of which time and observation 
had laid down a rule of successful practice, I 
am cautious how 1 exchange this for new opi- 
nions. 

The judicious manner in which my ex- 
cellent friend, Baron Dimsdale, managed the 
Inoculation for Small Pox, had long convinced 
me, that if any man deserved well of his coun- 
try, he was entitled at least to the thanks of the 
Legislature; and the opportunities 1 had of 
making myself acquainted with his opinions, 
taught me to listen with caution to any new 
practice, which was to overturn all I had 
made myself master of. 

When, therefore, it was proposed to me, to 
introduce a new Disease into the human system, 
I hesitated ; but on the assurance given to 
me, that it was still milder than the Inocu- 
lated Small Pox, was productive of no ill con- 
sequences, and would equally arrest the pro- 
gress of variolous Infection, I consented that 
Abraham Howard, the first child mentioned 
at my Examination, should be vaccinated. The 



101 

Cow Po\ terminated successfully, but the 
Child afterwards sickened, and had an erup- 
tion, which; I considered the Small Pox, 
though others called it an Hybrid Eruption, 
an appearance which I had been told had 
been described as not uncommon at the Small 
Pox Hospital, when the patient had been 
previously in a variolous atmosphere. 

*Two other Cases however were followed 
by distinct and unequivocal Small Pox after 
Vaccination, and then it was admitted that 
the Cow Pox would not arrest the progress of 
variolous Infection ; although it is well known 
Inoculation of the Small Pox within a limited 
period will supersede and subdue it. 

These Cases ascertained that there was no 
such thing as an Hybrid or Mulish Eruption, 
but that what had been called so at the Small 
Pox Hospital was the real Small Pox. 

I appeal therefore to persons of discern- 
ment, whether such mistakes in the outset of 
a new practice were not sufficient grounds for 
a cautious man to admit some doubts of the 
danger of introducing a new disease into the 
human system. The opinion which I gave 

* Will. Rinch, M. Solloway — vide Report. 



102 

to the Committee was supported by such 
proofs, in the answers sent to their enquiries 
and published in their Report, from Messrs. 
Slater of Wycomb, Grosvenor of Oxford, 
Nooth of Bath, and Dr. Hope of Haslar Hos- 
pital, that what I have seen and heard since, 
has only served to determine me not to be 
misled by the fashionable rage. 

The steady and single opinion I have main- 
tained in opposition to this practice, has 
brought me acquainted with some new Erup- 
tions, Abscesses, and Disorders, which I had 
not before observed ; but these accidents are 
generally attributed to a Spurious sort of Cow 
Pox. This is a term I do not admit of; I 
know of no such thing as Spurious Small 
Pox, Spurious Lues Venerea, Spurious Scro- 
phula. We are yet left unsatisfied as to the 
nature and origin of what is called Cow Pox. 
It is a disorder known only to the Cow Doctor 
in dirty dairies, though we are taught to play 
with it as a blessing revealed from Heaven to 
this enlightened age. 

If 1 wished to corroborate the grounds for 
my doubts, I might mention an almost equally 
fashionable rage, which had seized too many 
f the faculty, previous to the appearance of 



103 



Cow Pox, in favour of the Nitrous Acid, as 
a remedy for the Venereal Disease. Mercury 
was no longer to be called in aid, and the 
press teemed with publications to prove the 
mistaken opinions of hospital Surgeons. This 
novelty I resisted with equal firmness; here 
I was unwilling to give up Experience for 
Experiment, wanting nothing more safe or 
certain than Mercury, which for so many 
years, in the practice of so many competent 
judges, had proved an antidote to that ma- 
lignant poison. The advocates for the Nitrous 
Acid are now no longer heard of, the books 
on the subject no longer regarded. 

Sacrificing therefore every consideration to 
my actual opinion, I have avoided the prac- 
tice of Vaccination, but I have watched the 
result of it. I do not mean to enter into the 
proofs of its failures, or mistakes : Mr. Gold- 
son has published some, in a very candid pam- 
phlet — more are expected from another pen ; 
and unless the first Projectors have something 
better to say, than what has yet been said, to 
reconcile the public mind to those Cases of 
Mr. Hodges' Children, in Fullwood's Rents, 
Holborn ; I shall continue firm in the opinion 
I gave to the Committee of the House of 



104 
Commons, That what has been caixed 

THE COW POX IS NOT A PRESERVATIVE 
AGAINST THE NATURAL SMAIX POX. 



John Birch. 



Spring Gardens, 
October, 1804, 



AN 

EXAMINATION 

OP 
THAT PART OF THE EVIDENCE RELATIVE TO 

COW POX f 

WHICH WAS DELIVERED TO THE COMMITTEE OF 

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 

BY TWO OF THE 

SURGEONS OF ST. THOMAS S HOSPITAL. 



TO WHICH IS ADDED, 

A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR, 



FROM 



JOHN BIRCH, ESQ. 

SURGEON EXTRAORDINARY TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS 
THE PRINCE OF WALES, &c. &c. 



PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1805. 



PREFACE 

TO 

THE SECOND EDITION. 



THE favourable reception the first 
edition of this pamphlet has met with, and 
the change that has been made in the 
public mind with respect to Vaccination, 
lead me to think I have treated the argu- 
ment with candour. The letter which is 
annexed to this edition, I have Mr. 
Birch's permission to print. I trust it 
will not be unacceptable. His sentiments 
of the inefficacy of Vaccination, have been 
uniform from its first introduction to the 
present period. Whenever he favours us 
with his reasons for dissenting from so 
manv respectable members of the faculty, 



PREFACE. 

I am persuaded they will be found to be 
conclusive. 

The confession of some advocates for 
Vaccination in the Medical Journals of 
the last month, evince the declining state 
of the practice. Sincerely do I hope that 
as the experiment is not found to answer, 
it will be no longer pursued. 

W. R. ROGERS. 

Hertfordshire Regiment. 



AN 
EXAMINATION 

OF 

THAT PART OF THE EVIDENCE RELATIVE 

TO 

CO W POX, Ifo. tyc. 



THE mass of evidence which was produced 
before the Committee of the House of Com- 
mons in favour of Vaccination, did so influence 
the public mind, that all opposition to it has 
been borne down ; and the faculty of physic 
having set the example of transferring it to 
their own children, has been considered as full 
proof of the superiority of the practice. 

But so many subsequent circumstances have 
arisen, new in themselves, and contrary to 
that mass of evidence, and so much has been 
written on the subject without ascertaining 
any thing clearly, that surely, in some degree, 
to consider the report of that Committee may 
not be improper nor ill-timed- 



*10 

Let me be allowed to divide those who have 
given evidence on this subject into three 
classes : 

Physicians, whose province (it will surely 
be conceded to me) is not to handle the 
lancet \ 

Surgeons, to whose particular line of prac- 
tice inoculation appertains ; 

And Men-midwives, who are too much in- 
terested in the event to be considered fair 
evidence in the cause, according to a well- 
known dictum of the English law. 

The College of Physicians, as a body, are 
of opinion—" that, the practice of Vaccina- 
" tion is perfectly safe when properly con- 
" ducted, and highly deserving the encourage- 
" ment of the Public, on account of the ulti- 
" mate great advantage expected from it, 
" which can only be fully established by the 
" extended and successful experience of 
" many years." 

Much of that caution, which should reside 
in so learned a body of men, is here ap- 
parent. 

The College of Surgeons was never applied 
to for an opinion. 



Ill 

I wish, however, to consider the more pro- 
minent parts, which appear in the evi- 
dence of two gentlemen in that profession, 
who stand high in the public esteem, who 
have practised many years in the same 
hospital, who were educated under the same 
tutors, but whose opinions are directly in 
contradiction to each other upon the point 
in question ; therefore one of them must be 
in an error. 

* " Mr. Birch, Member of the Royal Col- 

" lege of Surgeons, Surgeon to St. Thomas's 

" Hospital, and Surgeon Extraordinary to 

" His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 

" has seen Vaccine Inoculation often, but has 

<c never practised it, and does not think that 

" he has seen facts sufficient, under his own 

•« inspection, to form a positive judgment, 

ff having been frequently deceived by the 

" reports of facts in other matters. A case 

" occurred in St. Thomas's Hospital of a 

" child at the breast, the mother being ad- 

«« mitted for fever, which proved to be Small 

u Pox ; the child was inoculated for the Cow 

* Vide Report of the Committee. 



11*2 

Pox (not by the witness, for he objected to 
this new experiment) and went through the 
vaccine disorder satisfactorily in the opinion 
of those who inoculated him. After the 
Small Pox had terminated in the mother, 
her child was taken very ill with fever; 
but on the appearance of eruption he grew 
better, and in that state they were dis- 
missed* The witness saw the child after- 
wards, and believes that the eruption was 
no other than the Small Pox, though it 
was called at that time an hybrid disease. 
He made no notes, nor can he recollect 
the day on which the eruption appeared ; 
nor does he know that it was later than in 
the usual progress of the Small Pox. Si- 
milar circumstances occurring soon after- 
wards in the same hospital, in two cases, 
made it evident that patients, having pre- 
viously received Small Pox infection, were 
not secured from ihe consequences of it by 
Vaccine Inoculation : none of these cases 
were fatal. He has no doubt, that in the 
above cases, the patients were infected with 
Small Pox previous to their inoculation 
with vaccine matter : but he is of opinion, 
that if they had been inoculated with Small 



113 

c< Pox matter, they would have only had the 
" inoculated sort of Small Pox, and would 
" have escaped the natural sort. His own 
* c practice in Small Pox inoculation has* been 
c< extensive, and successful : out of more 
" than two hundred whom he has inoculated 
" for Small Pox, he never lost one. He has 
" heard much of spurious Cow Pox, and all 
" the failures which have been talked of have 
<c been attributed to that. He knows no in- 
" stance of a person, after having gone 
" through the Cow Pox, catching the Small 
" Pox upon being exposed to it." 

" Mr. Cline (to the splendour of whose 
u talents, on many other occasions, I bow) 
« f Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, 
u and Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, 
u stated, that in July, 1798, he received 
<f some vaccine matter from Dr. Jenner, with 
iC which he inoculated a boy who had not had 
" the Small Pox : when he had gone through 
t( the stages of vaccine inoculation, he tried 
" to infect him with Small Pox by inoculation, 

* The omission of the word not, in Mr. Birch's evi- 
dence, he desires may be rectified here. 

I 



114 

" but in vain ; this circumstance, together 
fl with the communications he received from 
" Dr. Jenner, produced the strongest con- 
" viction in his mind of the great utility of 
" this practice, and he therefore recommend- 
" ed it strongly to all his friends, amongst 
" whom was Sir Walter Farquhar ; and he 
tc perfectly recollects the conversation rela- 
" tive to the emolument Dr. Jenner might 
" derive from the practice of Vaccine lnocu- 
* lation; but Dr. Jenner at that time declined 
" settling in London. 

" Mr. Cline looks upon it as the greatest 
" discovery ever made in the practice of 
" physic, for the preservation of the human 
<c race, as the Small Pox has been the most 
" destructive of all diseases. He was con- 
" suited upon the case of a child of Mr. Aus- 
!f tin, at Clapton, with whom it was said the 
" Cow Pox inoculation had failed; but from 
cc particular enquiries of the parents and 
" nurse, he was perfectly convinced the child 
" had never received the Vaccine disease; 
" and this evidence Mr. Taylor, the surgeon 
" who inoculated it, confirmed. He thinks 
" that experience has sufficiently demon- 
" strated that persons inoculated with the 



115 

" Cow Pox, are incapable of receiving; the 

" Small Pox \ and he believes that in the in- 

" stances where the Small Pox has been 

" caught, and the patient has, before the 

" coming out of the disease, been inoculated 

'• with the Cow Pox, it mitigates the virulence 

" of the Small Pox. The Vaccine disease is 

" not contagious, nor does it create any blemish 

" on the human frame ; nor does it excite 
" scrophida, or any other disease, which is 

*' sometimes the case with the inoculated Small 

u Pox. In November, 1800, he performed 

w the operation for the stone on William 

" Bench, a child in Isaac's ward of St. 

u Thomas's Hospital. In a few days after, 

" hearing* that this boy was in great danger 

*• of catching the Small Pox, he directed 

'• that he should be inoculated with Cow Pox 

'• matter, which took effect, and proceeded 

" in the usual manner : but in thirteen days 

•' after this inoculation, a few eruptions ap- 

" peared that seemed to be variolous. Ad- 

" mitting these eruptions were the true Small 

" Pox, the time of their appearance shows 

" the infection had been received before the 

;< child was inoculated with Cow Pox matter; 

" for the natural Small Pox frequently does 

i 2 



116 



" not appear until sixteen or eighteen days 
a after the patient has been exposed to infec- 
" tion. A second case was in November, 
" 1801; the child of Mary Solloway, in 
" Mary's ward of the same hospital: this 
" child was known to have been exposed to 
" the infection of Small Pox, and therefore 
" the mother permitted it to be inoculated 
€( with Cow Pox matter; but in four days 
" after, the Small Pox appeared, and the 
" disease was very severe ; however the child 
" recovered. A third case was a patient of 
(( Dr. Lister's^ whose mother had the Small 
" Pox. In six days after the complaint had 
" appeared in the mother, the child was in- 
" oculated with Cow Pox matter, and the 
" complaint from this inoculation proceeded 
iC as usual ; but in about fifteen days a few 
" eruptions appeared that were of a doubtful 
" nature." 

Prom the most minute enquiry, these are 
all the cases which have occurred in St. 
Thomas's Hospital, where variolous eruptions 
have succeeded the Vaccine Inoculation, in 
each of which there can be no doubt that the 
patients were exposed to the infection of Small 
Pox previous to their being* inoculated. 



117 

Mr. Birch having 1 taught his pupils the 
maxim, that experience was preferable to 
experiment, examines cautiously into facts 
before he gives them his assent, and therefore 
admits that his patient, Abraham Howard, 
should be vaccinated while at the breast of 
his mother, who was labouring under the 
natural Small Pox ; but he refrains doing the 
operation himself, that the experiment may 
be most unequivocally relied upon. The 
event, as he relates it, was, that the Vaccine 
disease passed through its stages to the per- 
fect satisfaction of his colleagues; but that 
being over, the child sickened, had fever and 
eruption, which he insists was the Small Pox, 
although his colleagues, with equal firmness, 
maintained it was an hybrid eruption.* 

Two more cases of vaccination in the same 
hospital, and followed by the same appear- 
ance, cleared up the dispute, and it was al- 

* Dr. Woodville, Physician to the Small Pox Hospital, 
supposed the Cow Pox, ingrafted on a patient who had 
been in the atmosphere of Small Pox, would frequently be 
followed by an eruption of a mulish nature, different from 
Small Pox, which he called the hybrid eruption. It was 
afterward discovered this was the real Small Pox appear* 
ing after vaccination. 



118 

lowed that if the patient had caught the 
natural Small Pox, the Vaccine inoculation 
would not impede its progress. 

Now, as it is agreed on all hands, that the 
inoculation of Small Pox, under similar cir- 
cumstances, would supersede and destroy the 
infection naturally received, Mr. Birch took 
his stand on this ground, and has ever since 
steadily and firmly maintained that on this 
account he was satisfied the experiment would 
not produce the results promised from it 

He named to the Committee four prac- 
titioners in different parts of the kingdom, 
who in correspondence with him had related 
the failure of cases which had been vacci- 
nated : these gentlemen were written to that 
night, and their answers are printed in the 
Report, recounting four cases where the Small 
Pox has appeared after vaccination. 

Mr. Cline, on the other hand, asserts, that 
after trying the experiment in one case, he 
wished Dr. Jenner to settle in London, and 
communicated his success to several friends, 
and, upon his opinion alone, they immediately 
adopted his proposition, in particular Sir 
Walter Farquhar. 

Mr. Cline is of opinion that it is the greatest 



119 

discovery ever made, because the Small Pox 
is the most destructive of all diseases. He 
proceeds to say, that it is sufficiently demon- 
strated, that persons who have been vaccinated 
can never receive the Small Pox. He admits, 
with some reserve, the hospital cases quoted 
by Mr. Birch, but says the Vaccine Inocula- 
tion, even under such circumstances, though 
it does not supersede variolous infection* 
mitigates it ; yet in the case of Mary Sollo- 
way's child, if I rightly understand him, 
Mr. C. states " the disease to have been very 
" severe, but thai the child recovered." He 
further declares, the Vaccine creates no ble- 
mish, and does not excite scrophula, nor any 
other disease. 

The contradictory opinions of two such 
eminent surgeons did not pass unobserved by 
the Committee — the answers returned to the 
letters of enquiry from Dr. Hope, Mr. Nooth, 
Mr. Grosvenor, and Mr. Slater — -the case of 
Mary Dyer, of Old Sod bury — together with 
other opinions, created some doubt ; notwith* 
standing which the Committee declare three 
things (among others) which, if upon enquiry 
they are found to be erroneous, may tend to 
invalidate that mass of evidence given in sup- 
port of this new-invented disease. 



120 

The first assertion is, that Vaccine Inocu- 
lation has never proved fatal in any one 
instance. 

The second, that it does not excite other 
humours or disorders in the constitution. 

And the third, that it not only is to be re- 
lied on as a perfect security against Small 
Pox, but that if it becomes universal, it will 
absolutely eradicate and extinguish it. 

First, I have only to regret, in contradic- 
tion to these benevolent wishes (rather than 
deductions) of the Committee, that I can 
shew it has proved fatal in more instances than 
one: 

That in others it has created a new and 
undescribed disease : 

And that in several the Small Pox has fol- 
lowed beyond any dispute. 

The first fatal case which was made public 
was a patient at Islington ; the arm ulcerated, 
and the patient died. Many of the faculty 
visited this case, among whom were (I am 
informed) Sir William Blizard and Mr. Cline. 

The next was a patient at Clapham, and 
this is a well known case. 

The third was the infant of Captain B. of 
the navy. And the last I shall mention was 



121 

the child of Dr. Smyth Stewart, related by 
himself in a letter to Dr. Squirrel!. 

These cases were as favourably palliated and 
as ingeniously excused as they could be ; but 
it is admitted that each patient was punctured 
hy a lancet infected with what is called Cow 
Pox ; each arm so punctured became inflamed 
and ulcerated, and each patient died. 

That of Captain B.'s infant was, for a short 
space of time, concealed ; but the anguish of 
the parents soon caused a disclosure. I for- 
bear, in this instance, to mention names, the 
practice so strongly patronized, and under 
the sanction of the legislative body, excuses 
every one from censure. 

The number of children who have died of 
the natural Small Pox, owing to their parents 
relying on the security of their having been 
vaccinated, might be added to the fatal cata- 
logue, and be adduced as proofs that Vaccina- 
tion does not mitigate the virulence of Small 
Pox. This number might be known by an 
advertisement ; but here are enough to prove 
the experiment has been fatal in more than 
one instance. 

The next point I am to endeavour to esta- 
blish is, that a new disease, hitherto unde- 



122 

scribed, is frequently produced by the inser- 
tion of this unnatural fluid into the human 
frame. 

This disease shews itself under three forms ; 

An eruption, which appears on the face, as 
well as the body and limbs : 

An hasty abscess, which contains a fluid 
dissimilar to any other, and 

Glandular enlargements of the skin ; at 
first the size of a pea, then growing knotty 
and hard, at length suppurating. 

The eruption of the skin is the most fre- 
quent. It may be heard of in every parish in 
London — alas! in too many private families U 
it is not an hybrid eruption, but one sui ge- 
neris. 

Mr. Peers, perfumer in Jermyn Street, can 
exhibit a melancholy instance of it in one of 
his children. 

Rebecca Latchford,* daughter of a work- 
man at Mr. Banck's, Strand, was vaccinated 
when five months old, and the arms proceeded 
in the usual manner ; about a month after a 
pimple was observed in the middle of her 
forehead, which was succeeded by several in 

* See Serious Reasons, page 49. 



123 

the arms ; at first they felt like peas, they 
gradually increased in size, and more ap- 
peared in the skin on different parts of the 
body. The child was carried to a surgeon 
when about twelve months old ; he purged it 
with calomel, and directed the tincture of 
bark. As its health improved, the knobs 
advanced to suppuration ; that on the fore- 
head first maturated, and was opened ; some 
on the arm slowly followed. This case, I 
think, clearly demonstrates a new disease of 
the skin, not at all similar to scrophula, or 
any other disease I am acquainted with. 

A servant belonging to Mr. East, Adelphi, 
had a child vaccinated while at the breast; 
the progress of the pustule was regular ; 
about nine days after the scab formed, Urge 
superficial abscesses appeared on the nates, 
thighs, and body of the infant. They suppu- 
rated hastily, but the colour of the skin was 
unlike what it is in common inflammation ; 
it was of a dusky bluish red ; the child suf- 
fered great pain. They were opened freely 
with a lancet ; their contents was a gelati- 
nous, blue fluid, very similar to a solution of 
starch, and extremely offensive. 

In the la^t place with grief (but confi- 



124 

dently^ 1 assert, that the great advantage 
which mankind was to have received from 
this discovery has not been attained, from it 
being no security, in numerous instances, 
against the infection of the natural Small Pox. 

Divers cases to prove this last assertion 
have been brought forward ; but until Mr. 
Goldson published his they were concealed. 
Whenever the case pressed strongly, the vac- 
cination was declared imperfect ; the matter 
was taken too soon, or too late, or ic was 
spurious, or the practitioner was informed he 
had yet a lesson to learn. 

Before the committee had made their re- 
port, (1 believe I am accurate in saying) the 
clild of Matthew Montague, Esq. who had 
bee* vaccinated in the country, was put to 
the test of variolous infection. Several emi- 
nent practitioners visited the child while 
under the variolous eruption, and Dr. Den- 
man declared it was not Small Pox, because 
it turned on the sixth day ; however, matter 
was taken from it, by Mr. Walker, of St. 
James's Street, and two children of his 
coachman were infected by that matter with 
indisputable Small Pox. 

Dr. Croft saw these children who were 



125 



inoculated from Mr. Montague's, and I learn 
he admitted they had the Small Pox. 

Mr. Gould, at an oyster warehouse in Bow 
Street, Covent Garden, had a child vacci- 
nated at the Small Pox Hospital about a year 
since, and the pustule was considered so per- 
fect, that some were vaccinated from it. The 
latter end of last January, this child took the 
natural Small Pox, at a time when it was 
labouring* under the whooping- cough; it had 
about 200 pustules, and the cough proceeded 
in its course. 

The cases of Mr. Hodges's children, in 
Hoi born., have been so accurately drawn up 
by a medical committee, and confessed in- 
disputable, that I have only to remark, with 
surprize, how so many persons, pretending to 
know any thing about Small Pox, should for 
a moment have doubted the nature of the 
disease.* 

If Dr. Wollaston, to whom society (as I 



* When so much difference of opinion prevailed among 
the faculty, whether it was or was not Small Pox, it is 
surprizing that Mr. John Hunters distinction of the 
slough, lining the bottom of the pustule, should not have 
been the object of the search. 



126 

have heard it indeed observed) are not a little 
indebted for a deliberate investigation of 
these cases, had signed the conclusion an- 
nexed to the account of them, we should have 
been all astonished ; as he did not sign it, we 
are, I believe, all satisfied. 

But the case, which above all others is the 
most conclusive, is that of Mr. Bowen's child, 
at Harrow, which, after being vaccinated, 
was submitted to the test of variolous inocu- 
lation three successive years, without pro- 
ducing any effect. On the fourth inoculation, 
Small Pox was made to appear, and matter 
was taken from one of the pustules, with 
which another child was successfully inocu- 
lated.* 

Here, then, is the instance of the child of 
a medical gentleman, one who heretofore was 
fully convinced of the security of vaccination, 
and who boldly submitted his own infant to 
the test of this experiment (viz. Whether 
vaccination was an antidote to the Small 
Pox?) and this he repeated not once nor 
twice only, but a third and a fourth time ; 

* See Mr. Bowen's letter to Mr. Birch, in Dr. Mose- 
ley's Lues Bovilla. 



127 

at length the Small Pox takes effect. Here 
we see the boasted security completely over- 
thrown, and the practitioner, terrified at the 
event, judiciously putting to the trial all 
within his circuit, and succeeding* in giving 
the Small Pox to many who thought them- 
selves secure from it, they having been pre- 
viously vaccinated, as it is called. 

These cases sounded a fresh alarm. Mr. 
Bowen was brought to London, and examined 
by Dr. Pearson and others : nothing could 
be more clear than the account he gave, or 
more convincing to those who were inte- 
rested in investigating the truth. 

It is unnecessary at present to bring for- 
ward more cases in order to establish the 
point I proposed : these are certainly suffi- 
cient to prove that the report made by the 
committee, from the mass of evidence they 
had examined, is not supported by experience, 
for I think we now demonstrate — 

That Cow Pox has in more than one in- 
stance proved fatal. 

The Cow Pox is productive of new ap- 
pearances of disease, unknown before in the 
catalogue of human infirmities. 

And that Cow Pox is not bv any means 



12$ 

to be depended on as a security against the 
natural Small Pox. 

Therefore, I conclude that one of these 
gentlemen is in an error, and I leave the 
reader to form his own judgment of their 
evidence. 

The question, whether vaccination should 
be persisted in after what I have stated, 
comes next into consideration. The order 
from the medical boards to the surgeons of 
the army and navy is a matter of very mate- 
rial consequence on this point, and the public 
mind is so shaken by what has been done, 
and what is to be feared from it, that I with 
great diffidence venture to recommend those 
distinguished gentlemen, who guide and 
teach the profession of surgery, to consider 
seriously this matter before the practice of 
it is further pursued. 

The inoculation of the Small Pox, in the 
estimation of any one possessing common sen- 
sibility, must boast a proud triumph over the 
Cow Pox ; for the Small Pox exposes the just- 
feelings of the parent to only one conflict, 
and if not performed till two years after 
birth, the chances in favour of success are, 
under proper treatment, become almost a cer- 

4 



1.29 

tainty. The change it produces in the 
absorbent system is in unison with nature ; 
by it destructive consequences are prevented, 
and the patient is left in perfect security that 
it cannot attack the system again ; a security 
which seems not to attach to the Cow Pox ; 
and what the consequences may be of the 
revolution produced by Cow Pox, when the 
absorbent system is attacked by scrophula, 
lues venerea, or cancer, time alone can dis- 
cover. 

When the cases of the Hodges were esta- 
blished, several instances of the Small Pox 
occurring a second time were brought for- 
ward : but as Baron Dimsdale took so much 
pains to enquire into this circumstance, and 
never could satisfy himself that it had once 
occurred, I must quote his authority to sup- 
port my disbelief of such a thing having ever 
happened : besides, when so many objections 
were made to inoculation for half a century, 
surely if this had ever occurred, the enemies 
to the practice would not have been silent on 
the subject : yet we hear of no such instance 
(till now) brought forward. 

One rational objection has been urged, I 
confess, against the inoculation of Small Pox, 

K 



130 

that of spreading the infection, by exposing 
patients during the maturating process of it 
in public ways ; but this is a practice never 
followed nor recommended by Baron Dims- 
dale : it is true, that during the febrile state 
of the eruption, he insists upon the necessity 
of external air; but the eruption being 
completed, his words are " all is over," and 
from that time it was indeed his practice to 
keep the patient cool and temperate, not 
cold; for this purpose a well ventilated 
chamber, the cool side of the house, a yard, 
or a garden, were all he required. But I 
am satisfied his instructions have been mis- 
understood, and an observance of them would 
remedy the objection. 

One of the striking proofs of the utility and 
advantage of Small Pox inoculation was, in 
my humble opinion, the safety and certainty 
with which a whole district, a whole army, a 
ship's crew, or a regiment, might be insured 
from the ravages of a pestilential disease, by 
the artificial method of inflicting it. In this 
instance art completely triumphs over nature : 
and I shall here beg to relate a remarkable 
occurrence, which will fully illustrate this 
advantage. 



131 



Captain Spranger,* now Admiral, com- 
mander of his Majesty's ship Crescent, re- 
turning from the East Indies, took a Spanish 
brig, laden with slaves, many of whom were 
children from three years old to twelve : to 
his terror he discovered the natural Small 
Pox had broke out on board this vessel, 
where much neglect and mismanagement of 
the disease were evident: the crew w T ere 
landed on a small uninhabited island, near 
the Cape of Good Hope, and the sick began 
to recover surprizingly. This disorder is 
dreaded at the Cape as much as the plague 
is in Europe, of course he was directed to 
perform a strict quarantine, and on consulta- 
tion with his surgeon he judged it expedient 
to direct that all the mariners on board the 
Crescent, as well as all persons on board the 
Spanish brig, who had never had the Small 
Pox, should be inoculated ; this was imme- 
diately done with complete success, every one 
so inoculated recovered, notwithstanding they 
were ill prepared, from a long voyage and 
salt provisions; many of them were hardly 
sick at all. During his quarantine, he was 

* Eldest son of the late Master in Chancery; 
K2 



132 

obliged, by his instructions from the Admiralty, 
to detain an American vessel which fell in his 
way ; he recommended to the captain to 
inoculate his crew, lest it should suffer from 
the infection : the Americans resisted this 
advice ; but the captain being at length 
persuaded of the danger of the natural disease, 
and of the safety of inoculation, partly by 
constraint, and partly by consent, did inocu- 
late as many of the crew has had not pre- 
viously undergone the Small Pox ; here also 
the success was complete, and the favourable 
returns made to the governor, induced Lord 
Macartney to propose to the colony the intro. 
duction of inoculation ; but his good inten- 
tions were frustrated by the prejudices of the 
people. 

Now, I may fairly ask the advocates for 
vaccination, whether they are assured if Cow 
Pox matter had been tised, that the success 
would have been equal ? 

I believe there are many other places, 
beside St. Thomas's Hospital, where, upon 
trial, the Small Pox has proceeded without a 
check, and where inoculation was obliged U 
be had recourse to before the infection could 
be cleared away. 



133 

But as my rank in the profession does not 
entitle me to do more than recapitulate re- 
marks, I shall here put an end to them, I 
trust, before I become either tedious or ob- 
trusive, hoping that I have urged them with 
becoming decorum, and have offended no one 
in searching for the truth. 



A Letter, occasioned by the many Failures 
of Cow Pox, from John Birch, Esq. 
Surgeon to his Royal Highnes 1 the Prince 
of Wales, tfc. addressed to W. R. Rogers, 
Author of the Examination of the Evidence 
before the House of Commons, fyc. fyc. 



TO MR. W. R. ROGERS, HERTS REGIMENT, 
IPSWICH. 



London, July 6, 1805. 

BEAR SIR, 

The able and dispassionate manner in 
which you have treated the argument concern- 
ing Vaccination, seems to have had its proper 
weight with the thinking part of mankind. I 
recommend you therefore to reprint your 
pamphlet. It cannot have too extensive a 
circulation. I wish it could be sent to every 
part of the globe in justification of English 
Surgery. Inoculation has hitherto been con- 
sidered as distinctly the province of the Sur- 
geon ; the success of it, and the alleviation of 



135 

its distressing symptoms, depend on surgical 
treatment. It is a melancholy consideration, 
therefore, to think that this branch of practice 
should be taken from those who alone ought 
to exercise it, and transferred to persons, some 
of whom are totally ignorant of our profession. 

The experiment of Vaccination has been 
carried on from the commencement, to the 
present period, with a degree of art which 
does not augur much in favour of the cause. 

The number of persons adduced as sup- 
porting it when before the Committee of the 
House of Commons was forty ; but the Public 
has not been told, that out of this forty, twenty 
three spoke from hearsay only ; not from any 
knowledge they had acquired by practice, 
while the three persons who spoke against it 
corroborated their evidence by proofs. Strong 
as this fact is, no one has taken notice of it. 

When first Vaccination was recommended 
to me, it was announced authoritatively to be 
an absolute security against Small Pox ; but 
the experiment, when tried at St. Thomas's 
Hospital, failed ; and there it was first dis- 
covered that in a variolous atmosphere it was 
not to be depended on. 

This, in the outset, did not prove much in 



136 

the favour of Vaccination ; further difficulties 
arose from eruptions which appeared, too often 
in the face ; but these were obviated by say- 
ing", that observation had proved the vaccine 
matter to be divided into genuine and spu- 
rious, and that its good or ill success depended 
on the period at which it was taken ; on a cer- 
tain day it would prove innoxious and genu- 
ine : before and after that day it could not be 
depended on. Sometimes the cow was to 
blame, and sometimes the doctor. 

Thus we were left to judge by the event. 
If the patient should die from the inHamma- 
tion of the puncture, we might then conclude 
the matter was not genuine ; if the apothecary 
plunged his lancet too deep, or the infant was 
not of a proper constitution, the experiment 
might be fatal. To reason thus was to insult 
humanity. Alas! how can the constitution of 
a child be ascertained, when only one month, 
or six months old ? The failures which oc- 
curred, instead of operating conviction, 
seemed but to change the theory of the sys- 
tem ; new doctrines, new books, new instruc- 
tions, appeared every month. Even the first 
principle, of the origin of the disease, could 
not be settled. Dr. Jenner traced it from the 



137 



grease of the horse's heel ; and the description 
lie gave of it was alone sufficient to frighten 
us from adopting it. But this notion was 
soon found to be erroneous, and it is now con- 
jectured to belong to the cow ; yet, after all, 
this animal poison is too mischievous for use, 
until it has been meliorated by passing through 
some human body, selected as the victim of 
the experiment. 

But mere uncertainty was not the only evil 
attendant on Vaccination. New diseases oc- 
curred, as in the case, among others, of Re- 
becca Latchford. It was studiously repre- 
sented, indeed, that her affection was nothing 
more than common boils ; but the discrimi- 
nating colour, the stony hardness, and the 
continued succession of the tumors, together 
with the painful sufferings of the afflicted 
child, marked the novelty of the disease. 
Many individuals acknowledged this distinc- 
tion the moment they saw her. As it is im- 
portant, this case should be generally known, 
I have procured a drawing at full length of 
this unhappy little sufferer, which may here- 
after be presented to the Public. 

How far it was well judged, or politic, to 
direct our soldiers and seamen to become the 



138 

subjects, whereon a doubtful experiment 
should be tried, I do not mean to enquire. 
At all events, it would have been more regu- 
lar, and more to the interests of Society, as 
the experiment was surgical, to have con- 
sulted the College of Surgeons, and to have 
had their collected approbation, before a par- 
liamentary reward was adjudged, In all cases 
where Parliament has neglected to do this, it 
has committed an error ; as in the instance of 
Mrs. Stevens' medicine for dissolving the 
stone. 

But was it not highly reprehensible to con- 
ceal industriously all the cases which occur- 
red to the prejudice of Vaccination, while 
every thing that could tend to lessen the cre- 
dit of Inoculation was most artfully pro- 
pagated ? 

The facts which you have adduced are so 
strong in themselves, and the authority on 
which they rest so incontrovertible, that they 
entirely subvert the data laid down by the 
Committee of the House of Commons. Yet 
the argument might have been treated in ano- 
ther way, and these questions asked 

I. Is there any disease consequent to 
Small Pox Inoculation which is not a natural 



169 

disease, and which may not be produced 
equally by other exciting causes? 

II. Does the puncture of Inoculation ever 
produce such an inflammation of the arm as 
to kill the patient ? 

III. Can the artificial introduction of 
variolous matter produce any disease but 
genuine Small Pox ? 

IY. Are not the symptoms of inoculated 
Small Pox, after two years old, generally as 
safe and as mild, as those of the kindest 
Vaccination ? 

V. Did the justly celebrated Baron Dims- 
vlale, in his extensive practice, both abroad 
and at home, during the space of forty-five 
years, ever lose three of his patients ? 

I affirm that the negative must be replied 
to each of these questions. What then is 
there left for Vaccination to do, that may 
not be done more advantageously by Inocu- 
lation ? 

But the object of the projectors of Vacci- 
nation, was not I fear so much the desire of 
doing general good, as that of securing to 
themselves, and to Men-mid wives, if the ex 
periment should succeed, the absolute com- 
mand of the nurseries, to the entire exclu- 
sion of the Surgeons. 



140 

This being really the state of the case, I 
must call it an unworthy expedient, to alarm 
the ignorant multitude with the dangers of 
Inoculation ; an enemy that had been laid at 
their feet by the firm and steady exertions, of 
the great and good Baron Dimsdale. 

A monthly Medical Journal, which ha£ 
spread the mischief of Vaccination widely, 
and which, till the last month, has been shut 
against every statement which could affect 
its credit, now acknowledges failure upon 
failure, attested by one practitioner after 
another. But we are little obliged for these 
tardy confessions, since the Public has been 
some time in possession of the facts, together 
with many others; and they are now acknow- 
ledged, because they can no longer be con- 
cealed. I again affirm, that the Public are 
before hand with the Medical Journals; 
they have indeed been too long misled by the 
charm of novelty, but they perceive their 
error; and they have loudly called out for 
regular Inoculation, to prevent the mischiefs 
of natural Small Pox, which has appeared 
epidemical in many places, and proved fatal 
in cases where Vaccination had been relied on. 

I forbear to say more on this subject at 
present. I have collected materials enough 



141 

to satisfy the Public of the validity of the 

reasons on which I have uniformly objected 

to the practice of Vaccination. That 1 should 

come forward, is a duty I owe both to them 

and myself. Should I contribute towards 

dispelling 1 that mist of prejudice, which has 

dbscured the judgment of many well inten- 

tioned people, and many able practitioners, 

I shall have just cause to rejoice. To attempt 

to vindicate truth and expose error, is the 

noblest exertion of our faculties : to succeed 

in the attempt, is to obtain the most exalted 

gratification a reasonable being can desire. 

r 

I am, 

Dear Sir, 

Your faithful friend, 

John Birch. 

Spring Gardens, 
July 6, 180S. 

P.S. Every post brings me accounts of the 
failures of Vaccination. From Hertfordshire, 
I have notice of four cases within the last 
month, two of which were fatal ; but as I 
do not admit Hearsay Evidence, I must 
enquire more particularly before 1 publish 
them.- -However. 1 have just seen a child 



U2 

in Orange-court, Swallow-street, vaccinated 
live years ago by a Man-midwife, who is not 
only the strongest advocate for Vaccination, 
but is considered to be one of its most skilful 
practitioners. By him this child was pro- 
nounced to have had the genuine sort : and 
so strong- was his conviction of it, that he 
took matter from him to vaccinate many 
other patients with ; yet, this very child is 
now full of the true, not of the supposed 
Small Pox. 

The mother says the Small Pox is not in 
the court— and that the child has not been 
in the way of infection to her knowledge. 
Add this case to the confessions of the 
Monthly Journal, and to * Dr. Moseley's 
list, and what is the conclusion we are to 
draw ? There is but one ; namely, that Vac- 
cination neither secures the patient from 
catching the Small Pox by variolous infec- 
tion, nor when so caught, lessens the danger 
of disease. For my own part, I tremble to 
thrnk on the perils which await Society from 
the prevalence of Vaccination. Unless it be 
stopped, we shall see Small Pox at no very 

* Vide Moselcy on Lues Bovilla, 2d edit. 



143 

distant period recur in all the terrors with 
with which it was first surrounded ; desolating 
cities like the plague, and sweeping- thousands 
from the earth, who, lulled into a false secu- 
rity, will have fatally deprived themselves of 
the only proper means of defence. 



I saw the father of Rebecca Latchford 
a few days since, who informed me she 
is now about fifteen years old, and a de- 
plorable object, ever since my brother first 
mentioned her. She used to be in and out 
of St. Thomas's Hospital, but since his death, 
she has been in and out of St. Bartholomew's, 
and is now at the Infirmary at Margate, for 
sea bathing for a time, then returns to London, 
and is in and out of Bartholomew's again, 
and poor dear is a living melancholy monu- 
ment of Cow Pox 5 as well as many many 
others, and many who have died. 

Penelope Birch. 

Five, in one family, very near me, are just 
recovered from Small Pox. Three daughters 
from 12 to 15 years old, all vaccinated in their 
infancy ; the eldest came home from London 



Ii4 



very ill, in a few days something came out 
which the Vaccinator chose to call Chicken 
Pox as usual, but the Family and Friends 
knew to be Small Pox. The two other 
sisters sickened, and had it likewise ; a servant 
maid, who had not been vaccinated caught 
it, was very full and bad, matter was taken 
from her, a child was inoculated with it, 
by a Medical gentleman, and produced a 
fine Small Pox, with which he inoculated 
another child from her : a man servant in the 
first family likewise caught it of the maid, 
they are now all recovered ; but I saw 
them when bad, as well as many more, from 
the first, both here in London and elsewhere, 
besides what my numerous friends have seen 
and mentioned to me. 

Penelope Birch. 

Kentish Totvn, 
August , 1817. 

1 have just perused the National Report of 
Cow Pox for 1816, with its Appendix, in 
which is their account of Small Pox, after 
(and without) Cow, spreading through the 
Parish of St. Osyth in Essex, (I know of it 
at Epping,) as well as the accounts, sent to 
the Colleges, Sec. &c. from Cambridge, Mis- 



145 

senden, Dawlish, Ringwood, Cheltenham, aud 
every where else, both at home, and abroad, 
all over the globe, wherever it has gone — 
Failures and bad consequences have en- 
creased with the encreasing years, and been 
made known and proved to Mr. Birch, and 
other honest Anti- Vaccinators ; though con- 
cealed and denied, or prevaricated, by the 
Cowmen. 

Penelope Birch. 

August, 1817. 



REPORT 



OF 



THE TRUE STATE OF THE 

COW POX EXPERIMENT, 

AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1809, 



BY 



Mr. JOHN BIRCH, 

SURGEON OF ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL, 



WITH AN APPENDIX, 

CONTAINING AN 

ACCOUNT OF SOME CASES OF FAILURE AT CHELTENHAM 
ON PERSONS WHO HAD BEEN VACCINATED 

BY DR. JENNER. 



Report on the State of Vaccination and the 
three Institutions created to support Cow Pox, at 
the close of the year 1809. 



1 HE original Cow Pox Institution, established to Reference. 
investigate the merits of the experiment, under the direc- 
tion of Dr. Pearson and others, has published various state- 
ments, in which it has been asserted, and proved, that Vac- 
cination is not to be relied on as a certain preventive of 
Small Pox. No, i 

The Royal Jennerian SociETY,jTor the Extermination 
of the Small Pox, of which Dr. Jenner was President, is 
extinct. 

The London Vaccine Institution, or the Rev. Row- 
land Hill's Cow Pox Society, under the direction of Dr. 
Walker, soliciting the donations of the charitable, and ad- 
veertizing by hand bills delivered in the streets, and in various 
other ways, for patients, — still lingers in existence. 2 

The doubts created in the public mind by the sophistry 
of the Report of the College of Physicians, and the alarm 
excited by the masses of cases in which the experiment has 
failed, in different parts of the kingdom, have induced Par- 
liament to institute a National Vaccine Establishment, 
at the public expence, for the purpose of distributing genuine 
Cow Pox matter, and investigating all accounts relative to 
Vaccination . 

In a Report published by the Board of this Establish- 
ment, on some of Dr. Jenner' s cases, they seem disposed 
to continue the system of deception so long practised by the 
late Jennerian Society. ig 



J 60 

The incorrectness (if so mild a term be admissible) of 
this Report, as proved by the written testimony of the suf- 
ferers themselves, and the evidence of two respectable medi- 
cal gentlemen, should point out to Parliament the improba- 
bility of ascertaining a truth by making it the interest of the 
investigators to persist in error. 

By these cases, and many others which have been since 
published, the boasted infallibility of the great Discoverer 
of Vaccination has been annihilated, and the prediction of 
the Opposersof Cow Pox, that Dr. Jenner' s patients would 
share the fate of those of other Vaccinators on the occurrence 
of an epidemic Small Pox, has been verified. 

It is a fact, affording much room for comment, that Dr. 
Jenner, was just admitted to the Directorship of the Na- 
tional Vaccine Establishment, when the Small Pox broke 
out at Cheltenham, and the cases alluded to occurred ; that 
he immediately relinquished his appointment; and has not 
since appeared at Cheltenham, the former seat ef his Summer 
residence, and the principal scene of his Vaccine practice. 

It has likewise been lately discovered, that although Dr. 
Jenner was so fully convinced of the infallible security 
Vaccination afforded to others, he was not quite satisfied that 
it would prove equally efficacious in his own family. He 
therefore, with true parental caution, inoculated his own 
child with Small Pox matter. 

These circumstances being developed, — but not by the 
candid confessions of the Vaccinists, — some of the most con- 
firmed believers in the mysteries of Vaccination are become 
sceptics. 

The prevarication of the Cow Pox Reporters, when Small 
Pox happened after Cow Pox, has been so often exposed 
that the public are no longer misled by them. Formerly 
such cases as were, on account of the virulence of the dis- 



151 

ease, allowed to be indisputably Small Pox, used to be re- 
presented as having been imperfectly Vaccinated, and such 
as were admitted to have been perfectly Vaccinated by Dr. 
Jenner himself or his disgraced agents, were said to be 
Chicken Pox, or some hybrid eruption, until Inoculation 
from such cases proved those suppositions to have arisen from 
Ignorance or Design. 

It is now merely contended that Vaccination mitigates 
the virulence of subsequent Natural Small Pox, ; but even 
the slender hope, here held out, of protracting the experiment, 
is extinguished by numerous fatal proofe of the fallacy of the 
doctrine. 

The members of this new Cow Pox Establishment were 
so shy in the circulation of their Report on Dr. Jenner's 
cases, that scarcely a copy was distributed in London. In 
the Country it was imagined that it would produce some 
effect, and might escape the perception, and consequent 
animadversion of the Opposers of Vaccination. On the ap- 
pearance of this Report, however, at Cheltenham, an able 
reply to it was made by Dr. Jameson, which sunk it into 
deserved contempt. 

The printed directions of this Society positively contradict 
the Report of the College of Physicians, and the absolute as- 
sertions of all former writers on the subject. 

By them we were informed that the Cow Pox virus was 
perfectly innocent, and that no disagreeable consequences 
ever resulted from the puncture ; that the operation was quite 
simple, and might be performed by clergymen or ladies. 

Here it is admitted that too much inflammation may arise, 
and that foul ulcers and obstinate sores may ensue. We 
are likewise led to conclude that the operation requires 
such great nicety, and so much experience, that it is im- 
possible the improved practice, even were it successful, can 



152 

ever be extended so wide as to be productive of benefit to 
the community at large. No less than six causes, which may 
render the operation ineffectual, are circumstantially detailed. 

As early as the year 1800, rumours which had a tendency 
to prejudice persons against Vaccination were so common, 
that fifteen Physicians, and twelve Surgeons, of eminence, 
beside others, thought it necessary to sign an advertisement, 
— which appeared in the Morning Herald, — assuring the 
public " that those persons who had had the Cow Pox were 
" perfectly secure from the infection of the Small Pox. 1 ' 
When this assurance is contrasted with the numerous 
authentic cases of the failure of this preventive, which have 
since been published, it will appear incumbent on these expe- 
rienced practitioners, either candidly to confess their error, 
or to disprove the facts, and publish a satisfactory defence of 
Vaccination. 

The recurrence of Medical Men to the tried, and success- 
ful practice of Inoculation, in many parts of England where 
epidemic Small Pox has proved the futility of Vaccination, 
the * present torpidity of the National Cow Pox Establish- 
ment, the solemn silence of the College of Physicians on the 
subject, the secession of respectable characters from the 
cause ; and the extinction of the hireling writers who were 
retained to defend Cow Pox, together supply ample evidence 
of the hopeless state of the experiment ; whilst the subject, 
like the Institutions, would be lost to remembrance, if those 
few individuals, who have been so basely stigmatized for 
maintaining their original sentiments, did not conceive it 
right to assert the solidity of their opinions, and to con- 



* Since the first impression of this Report, some papers have 
been circulated from the Cow Pox Establishment and from the 
Octagon Chapel, representing the aversion which now so gene- 
tally prevails, against this delusive and mischievous experiment. 



153 

vince Parliament, and the public, how grossly they have been 
imposed on. 

In respect to the state of the experiment in Scotland, it 
must not be forgotten that at a very early period the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh was so fully assured of the utility and 
security of Vaccination, that the honorary degree of Doctor 
in Medicine was conferred on the Discoverer of this 
blessing. 

Among the medical practitioners in that part of the United 
Kingdom, the belief in the efficacy of Cow Pox has been so 
general, that the universal adoption of it must have been re- 
tarded by causes totally unconnected with the influence of 
anti-cow pox doctrines ; — some inherent defects in Vaccina- 
tion, hate become manifest to the people of Scotland. 

Until the late eventful year, the Vaccine doctrines and 
practice met with no opposition ; but at length the Univer- 
sities, and Cow Pox Societies, have been thrown into con- 
sternation by the heretical opinions, as they considered them, 
of Mr. Brown of Musselburgh. This candid and experi- 
enced practitioner has published a liberal confession of the 
entire failure of the experiment in his own practice ; and 
adduces upwards of fifty selected cases, vaccinated by him- 
self and others, in support of his present opinion, " that 
" Vaccination cannot be relied on as a permanent security 
" against Small Pox." 

A paper has been published in London, under the title of 
" Annual Report of the Cow Pock Institution Dublin " 
But the matter therein contained, varies so much from the 
original Report of the Dublin College of Physicians, wherein 
it is said that, " The Small Pox is rendered a much less 
" formidable disease in this country by the frequency of 
" Inoculation for it, than it is in other parts of His Majesty's 
" dominions, where prejudices against Inoculation have pre- 



154 

" Tailed ; hence parents, not unnaturally, objected to the 
" introduction of a new disease, rather than not recur to that 
" with the mildness and safety of which they were well ac- 
" quainted," that great doubts are entertained by some per- 
sons of its authenticity. 

When the Vaccine frenzy was at its height in England, 
repeated attempts were made to blend the praises of Vaccina- 
tion with the ceremonies of religion ; and from recent circum- 
stances it must be inferred that this idolatrous disposition is 
not quite extinct. 10 

In Scotland, likewise, the defence of Cow Pox against Mr. 
Brown's publication, commenced from the Pulpit. The 
cause here met with a champion in the Rev. Dr. Lee, whose 
arguments, like those of the Rev. Sidney Smith on this sub- 
ject, are founded on the unanimity of opinion. Although 
no reflecting and philosophic mind can be satisfied with ge- 
neral conclusions drawn from such premises, yet, the senti- 
ments of Dr. Lee on one point seem so just, that they appear 
to form an appropriate termination for this Report. 

" This unanimity" says the learned Writer, " of their 
" testimony, if shewn to be delusive, must reflect the great- 
" est disgrace on the Profession. It must have proceeded 
"from universal stupidity, or universal dishonesty, and a 
" species of dishonesty of unprecedented folly and enor- 
" mity ; foolish because its exposure must ruin their popu- 
" larity, and enormous because it must in all probability 
" sacrifice the lives of thousands." 

" If it proceeds from credulity, the criminality is not 
" diminished. The obstinacy of persisting in a detected 
" error is a proof of weakness and moral depravity almost 
" as decisive as the commission of a wilful mistake." H 

John Birch, 
Surgeon St. Thomas's Hospital, London. 



REFERENCES. 

1. vide Reports of this Society. 

2. Circular Letter of the London Cow Pox Society, 

dated April 6, 1809, &c. &c. &c. 

3. A Report published by the National Cow Pox 

Establishment, dated July 20, 1809, and 
signed James Moore, Assistant Director. 

4. Medical Observer for September, 1809, No. 24 ; 

and Dr. Jameson's Letter in Cheltenham 
Chronicle, dated 22d August, 1809. 

6. Cases in Medical Observer of July, and several 

succeeding numbers. 

6. Reports of the Royal Jennerian Society for Ex- 

terminating Small Pox, on the Failures at 
Ringwood, Cambridge, &c. &c. &c. 

7. The printed Instrument of the National Cow 

Pox Establishment, under head of Probable 
Causes. 

«. Morning Herald, 19th July, 1800. 

9. Brown's Inquiry into the Anti-variolous Powers of 

Vaccination, published at Edinburgh. 

10. Paragraph in Morning Post, January, 1810. 

11. Edinburgh Journal, 28th August, 1809, and a 

Sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Lee for the 
benefit of the Cow Pox Institution at Edin- 
burgh. 

These Reports and Directions may be had from Mr. 
Murray, Secretary to the National Establishment in 
Leicester Fields. 



APPENDIX. 

BOARD ROOM 

OF THE 

NATIONAL VACCINE ESTABLISHMENT, 

LEICESTER SQUARE. 

July 20, 1809. 

Amidst the numerous authentic Reports which are trans- 
mitted to the Board of the National Vaccine Establishment, 
from all parts of the Empire, describing the great success and 
extension of the practice of Vaccination, accounts have also 
been received of a very small number of failures. 

Most of these failures have occurred at such a distance 
from town, or so long after the event, as to preclude a pro- 
per investigation ; and some of those which could be inves- 
tigated were found to be misrepresented, and the history of 
others were destitute of sufficient proofs. But in May 
last, a letter was addressed to the Royal College of Physi- 
cians of London, by Dr. Jameson, of Cheltenham, in which 
he relates three cases, where the small pox occurred, though 
the patients had been vaccinated by Dr. Jenner some 
years before.* This Board having thought proper to de- 
sire me to investigate these cases, the following is the result 
of my enquiry. 

It appears that the two first cases were only examples of 
that slight variolous affection, of the warty kind, which 

* Twenty-five cases sufficiently proved were sent from Cam- 
bridge by Sir Isaac Pennington, a Felltm of the College ofPhysi~ 
cians, many months before this ; but hitherto no Report has been 
made on these cases, nor the least notice taken of them by the Presi- 
dent and his assistants, though presented by such high authority. 



158 

has been termed by some writers the secondary smallpox. 
The occasional occurrence of such an eruption, both after the 
small pox and the vaccine, has been often described and com- 
mented upon by Dr. Jenner, and other writers. There was 
nothing, therefore, in these cases, to make them be considered 
as failures. 

The third case was that of Charles Dodeswell, who was 
stated to have been vaccinated when an infant by Dr. Jen- 
ner, and four years afterwards to have contracted the confluent 
small pox in full virulency. Upon investigating this case, I 
find that this child was really inoculated for the vaccine by 
Dr. Jenner, but that instead of a regular vaccine pustule having 
been produced, and proceeding properly to its termination, the 
part inflamed prematurely and violently, and was unusually 
long in getting well. In fine, this was an instance of that 
irregular malady which was always declared by Dr. Jenner 
not to be depended upon as a preventive of the small pox. It 
is fully described in the Instructions promulgated by this 
Board ; and the causes are there mentioned which commonly 
appear to excite it. It is to be regretted, that when such ir- 
regularities occur in the progress of vaccine, it is often dif- 
ficult to induce the parents to have the operation repeated. 
From this obstinacy,* the life of the child above-mentioned 
was brought into great danger. 

It is clear, from the above account, that instead of these 
cases being failures, they were only instances of peculiari- 
ties with which we have been long acquainted. Indeed the 
utility of the vaccine has been displayed in a very striking 
manner by the effects of the epidemic small pox, which has 
lately raged at Cheltenham. For this destructive disease 



Vide Dr. Jameson's letter in contradiction to this assertion. 



159 



has proved fatal to several of those who rejected this innocent 
preventive, while thousands who had been vaccinated have 
continued in perfect health, though surrounded with the 
contagion of Small Pox. 

JAMES MOORE, Assist. Director. 



To the Board of the National 
Vaccine Establishment, 



Printed by order of the Board, 

J. HERVEY, M.D. Register. 



[The following Evidence, respecting the same cases, is 
so directly in contradiction to the whole substance of this 
Report, that a great want of integrity must be somewhere. 
The Reader will make his own comments.] 

Testimony of Ann Dode swell, Mother of the Children 
mentioned in the Report of the National Vaccine 
Establishment 

I declare that three of my children, Charles, Thomas, 
and Ann, were vaccinated by Dr. Jenner about four years 
ago, and by him pronounced safe. And that they have all 
three, lately, to the best of my knowledge (of the disease) 
had the Small Pox. Charles had the disorder so bad, that 
his life was despaired of. 

I took him to the Doctor, when his arm was in its worst 
state from the Cow Pox inoculation, who so far from 
shewing any anxiety about it, assured me the pock wag 
very fine , and that my child was perfectly safe. 

I farther affirm, that there did not appear to me to be 
any difference between the arm of this child and those of 
my other children who were vaccinated j and I positively 



160 

deny that it was more painful, or longer in getting well 
than the arms of the others. The truth of what I have 
here said, I am ready to confirm by oath. 

The mark * of ANN DODESWELL. 

Witness to the above, 

George Brown. 

August lSth 9 1809. 



Testimony of Mary Fluck, who nursed the Children above 
alluded to. 

I declare that Mr. Wood and Mr. Thomas Pruen came 
to Mrs. DodeswelTs, about a month ago, when she was 
from home. On heing questioned by them respecting Mrs. 
Dodeswell's son, Charles, having been vaccinated about four 
years ago, by Dr. Jenner, I said that I was witness to the 
child's having had the Cow Pox, and that I had never seen 
or heard of any difference in this child's arm from those of 
the others, who had the disease, and that it regularly got 
well. They then wished to see the arm, which I com- 
plied with. They then observed, that the mark was larger 
than it ought to be, and it could not have been the right 
Cow Pox. This, to the best of my knowledge and recol- 
lection, was the whole of the conversation which passed on 
the subject. 

The mark ^ of MARY FLUCK. 

Witness to the same, 

George Brown. 
August \§th, 1809. 



161 



*to the Editor of the Cheltenham Journal. 

Sir, 
Asa friend to justice, and the impartial promulgation of 
truth, you will please to communicate to the public the fol- 
lowing letter on the report of the three cases of Vaccination, 
inserted in your last weekly paper. 

Although, as a Member of the College of Physicians in 
Loudon, I transmitted to that respectable body, three cases 
of Vaccination performed at Cheltenham, by Dr. Jenner, 
which were considered by several medical practitioners on 
the spot, to be proofs that the practice of Vaccination was 
not a permanent security against Small Pox infection in all 
cases, yet it never was my wish that they should have been 
made the subject of public animadversion. 

I certainly am not, as some persons have inferred from 
Mr. Moore's report, inimical to the experiment of Vaccina- 
tion being completely and fairly tried ; , on the contrary, I was 
a principal agent in introducing the practice into the Fins- 
bury Dispensary, in London, and published a series of reso- 
lutions in favour of Vaccination, while Physician to that 
Charity. But the defective report of Mr. James Moore, 
Assistant Director to the Board of Vaccine Establishment, 
must injure the cause it was intended to support, and its 
industrious promulgation in the newspapers, by a resident 
practitioner in Cheltenham, does not permit me with justice 
to myself, to remain silent upon this occasion. 

I have not been able to discover that any person was sent 
from London to investigate these cases, but Mrs. Dodeswell 
affirms, that two gentlemen belonging to Cheltenham made 
enquiry about her child, since the period of my letter ; one 
of whom is known to have written a treatise in favour of 

M 



162 

Vaccination, and the other is a Surgeon in Cheltenham, who 
vaccinates for Dr. Jenner. Their investigation could not, 
therefore, be more impartial or more accurate than the one 
I made, by noting down the particulars which occurred in 
the progress of the diseases, and transmitting them to the 
College, while the morbid appearances still existed. 

The reporter says, " The two first cases were only ex- 
amples of a slight variolous affection of the warty kind, 
termed by some writers, secondary Small Pox, and cannot 
be considered as failures." These very expressions, accord- 
ing to the usual acceptation of words, would lead us to a 
conclusion different from that of the reporter. But we have 
incontestible evidence of their nature, from two children 
passing through the regular stages of a severe Small Pox, in 
consequence of inoculation from the variolous affection. 
These inoculations were performed by two different prac- 
titioners, and were distinctly stated as leading features of my 
letter to the College, but which are entirely omitted in 
Mr. Moore's report. 

The third case is acknowleged in the report to be a virulent 
Small Pox, succeeding to irregular symptoms of Vaccina- 
tion. The parents, however, say, that the Vaccination being 
considered perfect, a repetition of the operation was never 
suggested, and I think it an unfortunate plan, to circulate 
widely a printed report that Vaccination, in the hands of the 
Discoverer, who must naturally exercise the greatest caution, 
has, in this instance, failed. 

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 

THOMAS JAMESON. 

Cheltenham, Aug. 22, 1809. 



163 

Cheltenham, 12th Aug. 1809. 

Sir, 

I have seen Mrs. Dodeswell, the mother of the children 
Whose cases are noticed in the report of the Vaccine Establish- 
ment. She informs me, that when her son Charles, the 
subject of the third case, was under Vaccination, she herself 
took him to Dr. Jenner, when his arm was in its worst state, 
who, so far from expressing the least anxiety about it, said 
that it was a very fine pock, and assured her that the child 
was perfectly secure. She is very positive in asserting that 
the arm of this child was. not more painful, nor longer in 
getting well, than the arms of her other children, who were 
vaccinated. 

I learn from Mrs. Dodeswell, that the only investigation 
which has been made was by Mr. Wood, Surgeon, of this 
place, and Mr. Pruen, not a medical man ! who came to her 
house, when she was absent, and made some inquiries of a 
young woman, her relation. This young woman I have 
likewise seen. 

She says that, in reply to the questions of these gentlemen, 
she told them, that she was witness to this child having had 
both diseases ; and, that there was nothing different in his 
arm, at the time he had the Cow Pox, from the arms of the 
other children who had it, and, particularly, that it was not 
longer in getting well. 

The other two cases were seen by Dr. Jameson, as well as 
myself, who is witness that I inoculated from the mildest, 
and produced Small Pox, in two instances, in rather a severe 
degree. No notice is taken of this circumstance in the Re- 
port. It was, before 1 inoculated from it, by some persons 
said to be a case of Chicken Pox. 

M 2 



164 

If these facts be not convincing, nothing I can add will 
render them so. 

I remain, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

THO. FREEMAN. 

To Mr. Rogers, Surgeon, 
Spring Gardens. 

P. S. 

I subjoin five cases, in one family, in which Small Pox 
was produced by inoculation, notwithstanding the persons 
had, at former periods, been vaccinated by Dr. Jenner. 

James Hignell, aged nineteen years. 

Mary, aged sixteen, Esther, aged eleven years, were vac- 
cinated about six years ago. 

William, aged six years. 

Elizabeth, about three years of age, were vaccinated 
nearly three years ago. Scars remain. 

They were all inoculated by me on the 8th of July last ; 
the arms proceeding regularly. The fever became consider- 
able in each of them by the 15th and 16th, and was followed 
by an eruption, which appeared on the 18th and two ensuing 
days. 



165 



Mr. John Birch's last Letter, written for 
the Monthly Magazine, August, 1814. 

Mr. Editor, 

Your Correspondent, Mr. Crowfoot, is of 
opinion, <c That if Medical Associations 
<c against Small Pox Inoculation were firm, 
* there would be no use in any restrictive 
•* law." Now, Sir, I, who live in the Metro- 
polis, and know, and hear, all that is going 
forward, am quite of a different opinion from 
him. 

Firm associations have been subscribed to 
all over the kingdom, particularly in Glou- 
cestershire and London, the two first sources 
of the experiment ; but they have all been 
disunited, from the many failures and dis- 
orders which have accrued by Vaccination. 

Seven years since the College of Surgeons 
returned to Parliament an heavy list of erup- 
tions, glandulous diseases, and deaths result- 
ing from Vaccination : and those sad results 
have multiplied so greatly ever since, that the 
Vox Populi has called aloud for Inoculated 
Small Pox ; but they know not where to find 
it; having been too often deceived by the Fa- 



166 



culty, who have imposed Cow Pox upon them, 
and told them it was variolous. If any one 
will take the trouble to peruse the Vaccine 
Reports, for the last three or four years, he 
will find contradictions enough to astonish 
him ; and in the last he will find, that all who 
have been vaccinated by a single puncture 
(as at first proposed by the discoverer), are 
now in danger of Small Pox. In short, he 
will find nothing in the Metropolis to en- 
courage the practice, but that the support of 
it is rested on hearsay evidence, from distant 
countries. 

It has not wanted money, confidence, puflf, 
or any other aid, which associations could give 
it. It has wanted power to <c oppress the 
poor and needy," and such power the Legis- 
lature, I trust, will never grant them. The 
poor, Mr. Editor, want a friend, but where is 
that friend to be found ? Not among the Fa- 
culty, alas ! 

The Small Pox Hospital has ruined itself, 
by opposing Inoculation ; and I am fearful 
that many of those who undertake it know 
not what should be done : if any unexpected 
difficulty arises ; it is then left to chance. 

An Association has been entered into at the 



167 

College of Surgeons, where, certainly, they 
should have been quiet. If that .body hath a 
mind to do any public good, they should pro- 
pose Inoculation as one of their prize ques- 
tions, by which they would learn how little 
the practice is at present understood. They 
should make it one of the subjects of their ex- 
amination, but that might sometimes puzzle 
the examiner. 

It is singular, that of all the evidence in fa- 
vour of Cow Pox, nothing has ever been able 
to stand the proof of an oath : every thing has 
been asserted on hearsay, and all these asser- 
tions they have been obliged to contradict. 
The origin of the disease, from the horse's 
heel, the safety, security, and innocence of the 
simple pustule, the distinction between the ge- 
nuine and spurious sort; add to these the de- 
sertion of the discoverer from his post, as soon 
as appointed by Parliament, and the impor- 
tant discovery that his own child had been 
inoculated with Small Pox, and that kept a 
secret for near ten years, are facts of notoriety ; 
and when individually considered, must serve 
to excite the scepticism of every man, as to the 
boasted merits of Vaccination : but when col- 
lectively taken, are more than sufficient to in- 



J63 

validate in the mind, of a dispassionate invests 
gator of things, all that has been brought for- 
ward by its warmest supporters. 

If I was not fearful of occupying too much 
of yourpage^ I could prove, that several have 
died* of Small Pox after Vaccination, whose 
cases were reported to the Vaccine Board, 
and among them, the apprentice of Messrs. 
Green and Ward, apothecaries, in Manches- 
ter-street ; a servant maid at No. 58, New- 
man-street ; a child of Mr. Parker's in the 
King's Mews, five years after the most per- 
fect Vaccination ; besides many, too many 
others. 

I am, Sir, 

Your constant Reader. 



* And I know those who know a young man and 
a young woman, both about 19, who were vaccinated 
when infants, and died since this letter was written. 

P. B. 



169 



Mrs. P. Birch has selected from a Letter 
rvritten by her late Brother in July, 1814, 
to the Editor of a Monthly Publication, 
the following particulars, which, for reasons 
best known to himself, were left out of that 
Work, 



Mr. Birch says, I have never had occasion 
to change my first opinion, although the 
Medical Colleges, and almost the whole world 
have opposed me ; " They have followed the 
" shadow, while I have held fast by the sub- 
c< stance." 

" Experience is better than Experiment." 

Here is a list of a few cases (beside the 
Grosvenor one) each of which should have 
been brought forward, and defended by the 
Board, although they did not occur within 
their own stations. 1 will omit numbers which 
have happened in workhouses, parish schools, 
asylums, Sec. &c. The Medical Journals are 
no longer silent on the subject, nor are Prac- 
titioners now ashamed to own the error they 
have been led into. The House of Lords 



170 

have rejected the proposal for a distressing 
Act. 

The former richly supported societies are 
one after another reduced to bankruptcy, with- 
out making up their accounts. Dr. Jenner 
has had his own son inoculated with Small 
Pox, and kept it a secret for near ten years, 
has deserted his post, and retired with the 
premium. 

A few Cases dangerously ill with Small Pox 
after Cow. 

Mr. Giliman's child, in Bank-buiklings, at- 
tended by Dr. Babington. 

Sir Edward Baynton Sandy's, Bart, child, 
attended by Dr. Jenner, and others. 

Sir David Dundas's niece. 

Mr. Dampier's three children. 

Mr. Bower's child, vaccinated by Dr. 
Jenner. 

Mr. Botsford's child, Devereux-court, Tem- 
ple, seen by Dr. Powell. 

Medical Families. 

Dr. Thynne's daughter. 

Three children of Mr. Brown, Apothecary, 
&c. in Blackfriars-road ; the first was very 
dangerously ill. 



171 

Two children of Mr* Morris, Apothecary, 
Chandos street, Covent Garden; and many, 
many more. 

Died of Smaul Pox after Cow. 

An apprentice of Messrs. Green and Tur- 
ner, Surgeons, &c. Manchester-street. 

A servant maid. No. 58, Newman-street. 

A child of Snelling, a soldier, at the depot 
at Lisbon; vaccinated by Mr. Carpue; the 
mother and child both caught Small Pox ; 
the infant died; the mother lost one of her 
eyes. 

The son of Mr. Parker, of the King's 
Mews. 



All of the letter that was inserted in the 
Monthly Publication, is as under : 

Mr. Birch says, u In answer to the general 
invectives flung out by the Board against all 
who dare to think for themselves, and to reject 
their associations, I must beg leave to say for 
myself, that 1 never lost a patient by Inocu- 
lation, and that I consider even the natural 
Small Pox a mild disease, and only rendered 
malignant by mistakes in nursing, in diet, 



172 

and in medicine, and by want of cleanliness, 
which last is the femes of hospital fevers, and 
all camp and contagious disorders, 

" It would hardly be too bold to say, that 
the fatal treatment of this disease, for two 
centuries, by warming the chamber, and by 
stimulating and heating cordials, was the 
cause of two-thirds of the mortality which 
ensued. 

" It is not to the wisdom of the College of 
Physicians, that the Public is indebted for the 
present successful treatment, but to the family 
of the Suttons, who were indicted for their 
practice at the Quarter Sessions at Chelms- 
ford, but acquitted, with great encomiums 
for their success, and with the thanks of the 
Grand Jury for the lesson they were teaching 
the Faculty. 



Mr. Birch died February 3, 1815, without 
a groan, or scarce a sigh, and his affectionate 
sister felt it a public duty to inscribe upon his 
monument the following Epitaph. 



SACRED 
To the Memory of 

JOHN BIRCH, Esquire, 

Many years an eminent Surgeon of this Metropolis ; 

who died on the 3rd February, 1815, 

Aged 69 Years, 

and whose earthly remains lie deposited 

under the Pulpit and Desk.* 

m 

In his professional Character, 

As humane as he was skilful, 

He permitted not the daily sight of wounds and sores, 

Afflictions, and "wretchedness of every hind, 

To blunt the edge of his natural feelings, 

For the sufferings of his Fellow creatures ; 

But 9 contemning a too hasty reliance on vaunted Theories, 

Sparing of the Knife — abhorring unnecessary Torture — 

A Foe to wanton, cruel, or dangerous Experiment — 

Averse from rash operation, and the destruction of parts, 

redeemable by patient and judicious care — 

He erected for himself a high and distinguished reputation, 

On the solid, and only secure Basis of ENLIGHTENED EXPERIENCE : 

Stimulated throughout Life by a wise and Christian-like Ambition, 

To cure, not maim — preserve, and not destroy. 

^i 

Mankind is indebted to him 

For a more intimate acquaintance with the powers 

O/MEDICAL ELECTRICITY; 

By his own ingenious and improved application of which, 

He performed many remarkable and almost unhopedfor cures. 

But the Practice o^COW-POXING, 

which first became general in his Day, 

Undaunted by the overwhelming influence of Power and Prejudice, 

And the voice of Nations, 

He uniformly, and until Death, perseveringly opposed ; 

Conscientiously believing it to be a Public Infatuation, 

Fraught with peril of the most mischievous consequences to Mankind. 

Whether right or wrong, Time will most surely determine .♦— 

MAN'S MERE OPINIONS MUST EVER BE LIABLE TO ERROR ; 
BUT BY THE MOTIVES THAT SWAY HIS HEART, SHALL HE ALONE BE JUDGED. 

To perpetuate the remembrance 

Of Qualities so excellent, 

PENELOPE BIRCH, 

His affectionate and only surviving Sister, 

Hath raised this Monument : 

Not out of a worldly and vain-glorious 

Pride of Affinity ; 

But, in order to hand down an Example worthy of Imitation 

To succeeding Ages. 



* In the Church in Rood Lane, Fenchurch Street, 



ft. Bryer, Printer, Bridge- street., Blaekfriars, London 



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